bavass
Aquarium Advice Addict
Are you running a skimmer or just a canister filter?
High Nitrates!!!
- Thread starter DanRamirez57
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Gregcoyote
Aquarium Advice Addict
It's not the crushed coral IMO. Aragonite or crushed coral substrate are far better than sand for many reasons. You could run chemipure or a nitrate reducer in a cheap reactor to help lower nitrates. But the nitrates are coming from some organic source, over feeding, live rock breakdown, poor efficiency filtration, areas of low flow where detritus can build up. It also means that if your phosphates are zero that your tank is cycling properly. Get a skimmer and a sump, that will help a lot.
Spotted
Aquarium Advice Freak
Have you tried testing your ro/di? I tested mine the other day and found phosphates and ammonia and its what I use to feed my ato. (No wonder I got cyano and gha trouble) 
CorallineAlgae
Aquarium Advice Addict
I agree about the biomedia in your canister. It's far better to remove it completely and replace it with a bag of Purigen and ChemiPure Elite. If you don't have a skimmer the Purigen and ChemiPure should help remove some dissolved organics before they get broken down into nitrates. The bio-balls will only convert ammonia from the fish into nitrate as fast as they produce it. If you use your canister as a chemical media filter only you'll be far better off. You could keep the filter pads but I'd rinse them weekly in regular tap water to stop them from becoming nitrifying media.
You have plenty of live rock for nitrification. The amount of fish you have should not require any more bio-media than your rock will provide. Once you get your sump set up and running for a while I'd shelve the canister completely. It becomes more of a hassle after you upgrade to a sump system anyway. After you transition your filtration things should start to go whole a lot better.
The one thing that could cause everything to go badly is overfeeding. Please feed only what your fish can completely eat in about 20 seconds once or twice a day MAX until your nitrate levels start to bottom out. Good luck.
You have plenty of live rock for nitrification. The amount of fish you have should not require any more bio-media than your rock will provide. Once you get your sump set up and running for a while I'd shelve the canister completely. It becomes more of a hassle after you upgrade to a sump system anyway. After you transition your filtration things should start to go whole a lot better.
The one thing that could cause everything to go badly is overfeeding. Please feed only what your fish can completely eat in about 20 seconds once or twice a day MAX until your nitrate levels start to bottom out. Good luck.
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
I have a protein skimmer and I get my water from my lfs.
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
Thanks coralline ill take bio balls out ASAP. One thing that you made me think of is getting an additional power head for water movement as I only have one right now.
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
And I feed every other day.
Softie Guy
Aquarium Advice Regular
Periodically test water from the fish store!
To be on the safe side, test the water from the fish store. Check it for nitrates using your test kit. Also try a TDS meter if have one. I know of a store that I would NEVER get water from. I doubt the hardly ever change the filter media for their R/O system.
To be on the safe side, test the water from the fish store. Check it for nitrates using your test kit. Also try a TDS meter if have one. I know of a store that I would NEVER get water from. I doubt the hardly ever change the filter media for their R/O system.
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
Ok ill test right now thanks softie
Softie Guy
Aquarium Advice Regular
Please let us know the results.
CorallineAlgae
Aquarium Advice Addict
DanRamirez57 said:
That's great to hear. Does it collect much gunk?
DanRamirez57 said:
I'm very happy to help.
That's a wonderful idea. One powerhead in a large tank can allow detritus to settle on your rocks and substrate instead of forcing it to float around the tank and get sucked into the skimmer or filter. It's great to have powerful flow.
Also keep in mind that cleaning out filter floss (or pads) in tank water is only useful if you want the floss to act as bio-media. In a saltwater tank you want all that nice rock to be your bio-media. Rinsing it out in tap water once a week turns it into pure mechanical media which is much better for keeping nitrates under control. Let your rock do the job you want it to do and the filter pads the job it needs to do.
When you get your sump running you won't need the canister except maybe for running carbon, purigen or GFO... if that.
I also totally agree with SoftyGuy about checking the water from the fish store. Many stores let their RO filters go way to long. If they have beautiful reefs and display tanks at the store and nice looking saltwater livestock tanks, chances are they do a fine job with their RO filters. If their tanks look bleh, it isn't a good sign they have clean RO water in the shop.
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
Skimmer does collect a lot of gunk. I removed bio balls. And RO water tested at 10ppm nitrates.
Sniperhank
Giant Clam Addict
If you have a reading out of your ro water, then the filters or resin needs changed. The filtration and resin removes all tds, or total disolved solids, from the water so there shouldn't be anything in it.
CorallineAlgae
Aquarium Advice Addict
I've heard that RO filters can't remove all nitrate from source water. It isn't actually a solid. Water can have zero TDS but still contain nitrate. It certainly may help to put in new cartridges if it's close to time anyway. If you do change the prefilters remember to wash out the canisters.
Did you test the tap water before it goes through the RO filter? You may just have high nitrates at the source. If it isn't high from the tap but shows up out of the RO it could be bacteria living in the filter itself (but it's not likely).
Did you test the tap water before it goes through the RO filter? You may just have high nitrates at the source. If it isn't high from the tap but shows up out of the RO it could be bacteria living in the filter itself (but it's not likely).
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
I don't have an RO system yet. I get the water from my LFS
CorallineAlgae
Aquarium Advice Addict
DanRamirez57 said:
That's right. Sorry I'm forgetful. Have you mentioned the nitrate problem to the store? Could easily be using way old prefilters that they either forgot about or didn't care enough to change. I usually found better water than your store sells at grocery store machines that refilled containers for a quarter a gallon. I hope you can find a workable solution to get good water from somewhere.
Softie Guy
Aquarium Advice Regular
It is not a suprise that the LFS is sloppy with the water they provide. I know one store that did not calibrate their refractometer in years. They did not even know it needed to be calibrated.
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DanRamirez57
Aquarium Advice Freak
Softie Guy
Aquarium Advice Regular
Great that you have a sump running! Tell us more about it. Is it in your garage? What is that setup with the reflector-looking thing! Let us know how it helped your nitrate levels.
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