Sand beds and nitrate levels

speedykeys

speedykeys

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Oct 23, 2007
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I have a 24g nano cube with a 1" sand bed and its been running for about 2 years. Since I started it up I've pretty much never been able to get my nitrates below 10, they're usually between 30-40. I do water changes every 1-2 weeks and clean all the sponges and bio balls every time I do the changes. About once a month I'll swap out the activated carbon. I also have an AquaC Remora skimmer. My tank looks great and every things really healthy but I was at the LFS today picking up some new sps corals which I'm just starting to get into, and the guy wanted to make sure my water is balanced and that I have proper lighting and all that stuff before he sold the new corals to me and I told him what I had and that everything is great except the nitrate levels. He showed me all of his smaller display tanks had about 4" of sand and said he only uses the thick sand beds for the smaller tanks because they're so much harder to keep the nitrates down, and he said the sugar grain sand acts as a filter and that His levels are between 0-5. I would probably just go ahead and dump some sand in my tank right now if that was the case, but I know it's not going to be that easy. He explained the best way to add the sand without clouding the water for days but it would involve removing everything temporarily, luckily mines only a 24g. So anyway I'm fine with going through with the hassle of adding the sand and all that but I just wanted to get some other opinions to see if the thinker sand bed really could possibly help my nitrate levels get down. Either way I wanted to get a pistol/goby pair so if anything I know it would benefit them but let me know what you guys think. Thanks
 
The difference between 5 ppm nitrate and 10 ppm nitrate in terms of keeping the majority of the commonly available SPS corals alive is pretty negligible. Sure 0 - 5 ppm would probably be considered ideal, but I've never seen any problems with the Acroporas, Montiporas, Stylophoras, and Pocilloporas in our tank that can be blamed on nitrate levels being 10 ppm (or even 20 ppm a few times). I certainly don't have anything rare, so take that statement for whatever it's worth. The issues I've had with SPS corals have resulted from problems with inadequate flow because I didn't keep up with my powerhead maintenance like I needed to. I know this since I've encountered a problem a couple of times now, cleaned said powerheads, noticed a considerable increase in flow after the cleaning, and saw quick recovery in the corals that started to show signs of there being a problem.

The added sand would definitely benefit a shimp / goby pair. As far as reducing your nitrates, in a tank that small I wouldn't count on it doing much. The bacteria that break down nitrate work much more slowly than the ones that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate. Since it's a much slower process, it requires more surface area of anaerobic sand bed to have much of an effect than a 24g tank can provide. Incorporating some type of macroalgae is far more likely to be successful in helping keep your nitrates down.

Another suggestion would be to use RO/DI water, if you currently are not doing so.
 
I only use RO/DI water for topping off my tank, and use store bought salt water for water changes. What kinds of macroalgae would be used and how would you incorporate them into a tank?
 
Actually SPS's do best with a nitrate reading of between 3-6 ppm's. I would remove the sponges and bio balls and add in some LR rubble. I also would try to get a little deeper SB but I would only add a couple of cups a week and rinse it very well before adding and you shouldnt have any problems.
 
Archer, no I've got a question.... you say rinse the sand very well, I was told by a LFS that you don't need to rinse, why would that be? Seems to me that your idea of rinsing would keep the cloudy water down, but wouldn't it also remove some of the good things that would be suspended in the water for a time while it settled? It's just a question.
 
If I were to replace the sponges and bio balls with LR rubble, would it need to be cleaned periodically like the sponges?
 
speedykeys said:
If I were to replace the sponges and bio balls with LR rubble, would it need to be cleaned periodically like the sponges?
Click to expand...

I think all that is needed is the water change. The LR will act as a filter and go a long ways towards the cleaning.
 
archer772 said:
Actually SPS's do best with a nitrate reading of between 3-6 ppm's. I would remove the sponges and bio balls and add in some LR rubble. I also would try to get a little deeper SB but I would only add a couple of cups a week and rinse it very well before adding and you shouldnt have any problems.
Click to expand...

Where have you seen this? Nitrate as low as .3 ppm has been shown to significantly reduce calcification in corals. That isn't to say that corals won't do fine with higher nitrate levels, but ideally, they should be very low.

I also agree that the OP's better bet is to invest in a small refugium or some macroalgae, which will make a significant difference in nitrate concentrations in the long term--and it will be more reliable than many sand bed methods, especially for a tank of that size.
 
I havent been able to find the link about trates so my comment should be ignored until I can find it again sorry. I have always liked a deeper SB and in my 29 when I had it going had a 4 inche SB with no macro just skimmer and extra LR rubble and never had trates registering on any tests but like I said I prefer deeper SB's and I seemed to have more pods and bristle worms for a clean up crew. I have tried BB, SSB and DSB's and have had the best luck with deeper SB's.
 
Well I pretty much spent the whole day today making the new sand bed and the water is already almost already clear after about 5 hours, a lot of people said it would be really cloudy for days. I also took out all the bio balls/sponges and ceramic rings from the back and put about 5 lbs of live rubble rock back there. When I was talking to the guy at the store who also has a 24g, he told me he uses this stuff called chemi-pure (which does contain carbon as well as other substances) instead of just straight activated carbon. He uses only the small pouch of that stuff with a skimmer and no other filtration and his nitrates are down to 0. So I'm also trying that out to see how it works. He told me how he tried to build a mini refugium in the back of his tank, but if you know how compact these nano cubes are it sounds pretty tough. He wasn't able to keep his going because the moisture ruined the mini lights, or led's he had back there. So hopefully the deeper sand bed and new filtration in the back will help out because I don't think a refugium is going to happen. I mainly did all this not because I was having any problems, but I really like the the new stoneys and plan to add more and I want to make sure they can grow as quickly and healthy as possible, not to mention everything else in the tank as well........ the only crappy part of this whole process today was that I had removed almost everything from the tank to put in the new sand bed this morning and a few hours later when I was re-stocking I realized I never put my 6 line wrasse back in, and I don't even remember taking him out, but he was definitely there this morning. Well a few hours later when I went into the closet the get the mop which is right next to the tank, I found him in there. I guess he jumped out when I was pulling everything out of the tank this morning and flopped underneath the door and I never noticed him. He was all crispy when I found him and was way to late. I guess the only way to be optimistic about it is that he wont be pooping in my tank anymore so that should also help the nitrates go down.... anyway if you're interested how things worked out check back in a few days and I'll post the test results and some pics. Thanks again for all the helpful advice everyone!
 
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