Water Parameters

[Serge]

Greetings all,

I am presently at the point of being this close ->...<- to finally move my fishes into the main tank, but I am stumped (?) with water parameters....

My tank is 125 gal. with another 46 gal. contained in my filtering system. Two weeks in a row, I did a 30 gal. water change and I am still not happy with what I see. The nitrate only went down to 15 and the PH stays at 7.8. Here are the current water parameters that I just finished gathering:

Salinity= 1.024
Phosphate= 0
Ph= 7.8
Ammonia= 0
Nitrite= 0
Nitrate= 15 (Colour is between 15 and 20)
Water temp.= 80 F.

Saturday, I also added the required amount (for my tank) of Sachem Liquid Marine Buffer. It still did not make a difference.

So, I come to you, masters and gods of marine aquaria for ideas and clues on how to solve my problem.

I have a RO/DI unit and I tested the RO/DI water on the week-end. Input is 150 + ppm and output is 0 ppm. There is skimmer running, it was skimming like crazy while and after the LR (135 lbs) was curing but now the water is crystal clear and there is barely anything being skimmed from the tank. No livestock yet. There is also 200 lbs of sand in there.

Thanks in advance for your time!!

8)

 

[quarryshark]

Do you have a glass cover? You may not be getting sufficient gas exchange at the surface.

 

[Serge]

Hi QS. I have those folding glass coers which are folded, leaving only 50% of the glass covering the tank. Also, there is a lot of water mouvement at the surface as I have one of those jetstream tank from marineland. See my gallery for what my tank looks like.

Cheers.

8)

 

[Salttanker]

Hey Serge,

What type of filtration are you using on your tank? Are those wet/dry systems with bio balls? I can't really tell too well from the pic. Bio balls have been known to cause issues with nitrates, but since this is a new tank it shouldn't impact it right away. Also, how long has the system been cycling for, and what are you using to cycle the tank with?

Mike

 

[Serge]

ST - I have 2 Tidepool-2 on this baby. No bio balls tho. They both have: coarse and fine filtering media and charcoal pillows and bio wheel. All of this is powered with a mag24.

The tank was cycled twice... The tank was initially cycled with uncured LR and was ready a week before vacation. Since I had nobody to babysit the tank, I had to shut it down for 2 weeks and restart the cycle when I returned. It has now been running since June 18. Did a 30 gal. water change for the last 2 Saturdays. Cannot do more as this is as large container I could fit in the living room without getting into trouble with my wife. I will be doing more water changes until the nitrate goes much lower. I am aiming at 10 ppm or less before I move my fishes and crabs in there.

Thanks for your time!

8)

 

[seaham358]

with that much LR I see no need for the bio wheel, try running without the biowheel and chenge out the filter pads and see if that helps.
15 is not that bad and fish can handle nitrate at that level, so tossing in a fish or 2 to help keep the tank going may not be a bad idea.