De-Nitrate

i have nitrate problems too and i have been fighting it for some time now. but u in a better shape then i am because your fish tank is bigger than mine. one thing i know for sure that changing water every day will do nothing for nitrates. why don't u tell everybody a little more about your fish tank, because its unknown what u have all in total. somebody will be able to tell you why your nitrates are so high if he or she knows what you have.
 
It would be a major hassle to remove the CC as it fulters up through the sand, you could do it but simply removing it and replacing it with sand would be so much easier.

Bad roma, are you saying the water changes didn't do anything to your nitrates at all or are you saying the nitrate kept coming back?

Also, the OP(original poster) said the tank didn't get water changes AT ALL - regardless of your filtrataion and all that, if you don't do water changes and have fish in the tank your gonna run into water quality problems like that.
 
Ok, My tank is 75g, I use RO water for changes, I have Power Compacts, 2 Actinic 2 natural 10,000k....5 Lunars, I have 2 AquaClear 70's (hang ons) & 1 Seaclone Protein Skimmer sized for 150g...2 Power Sweeps sized for a 40g each...I have a hang on the tank Fuge with grape Calerpa & pods....I have almost 90 lbs of LR (2 peices are Tonga Rock) & crushed coral substrade with 10 lbs of live sand in the center area....Livestock consists of 3 Damsels, A 5 inch Purple Tang, Divided Leopard Wrasse, Mandarin Dragonet, Coral Beauty, Purple Firefish, Orange Stripe Goby & a very cute Pipefish....Also have asst red & blue leg hermit crabs & Snails, & some Featherdusters....I have one Toadstool Leather coral that I think the nitrates are going to do in soon....All of the 4 cleaner shrimp died, also an emerald crab, a porcelin crab & a red sea star all zapped from nitrates....
 
what are the readings of RO water before you put it in a tank? i'm asking because i have nitrate reading of after i RO and DI my water. i had to buy another filter just for nitrates. possibly that cartreges have to be changed
 
I'd say it's the crushed coral and how ever many years worth of various fish waste. Don't buy live sand just go to home depot or where ever and get white play sand it will cost you about $10-$15 to fill your tank or if you want a deep sand bed You'd need to roughly double that ,"my $ figure shouldn't be off by much."
Get a large rubber maid container for your fish and another for your live rock. There are a couple of ways to go about this the easy way and the safer way. The easy way is just to take all you fish live rock etc and place in to large rubbermaind containers make sure the fish have some water movement put your powerhead in with them. The rock will be just fine for a few hours in a rubbermaid with water. Then remove all the c.c. from the tank if there are little worms etc. save some put them with the l.r. You should keep a close eye on your water params for a few days after that make sure you don't have a spike .l'd also wash out as much schmutz as possible from the bottom of the tank save some of the old tank water for this.
The safer way would be to do 1/2 at a time but, it would be a really big pita to do this twice.
Place all your live rock back in the tank and add dry sand,"please, make sure the live rock is on the base of the tank as this will make your rock pile much more stable!" Fill bottom of tank with desired amount of sand. Place a bowl on the sand and fill tank with water.
When you refill but a glass bowl or something of that sort in the bottom of the tank or you'll end up with a mega sandstorm vs a giant sand storm. I'd give the tank a few hours to settle down and turn back on your power head," directed away from the bottom!" Add fish when the water starts to clear up ,"don't worry if there is a little sand still in the water when you put your fish back in.
Hth
Chris
**keep a close eye on the calupera to if it's in a situation where it's getting lots of nutrients and/or if it's not being harvested enought by you or critters it will go sexual. It will more or less melt down and spread spores everywhere in your tank. I'd use cheto or other algae in there cheto grows fast doesn't go sexual and pods love it .
 
Last edited:
don't use white play sand, it's toxic to fish. there is something about it that takes the oxigen out of the water.
 
Since when BadRoma1? A lot of people in the s.w. community have used white play sand in their tanks for years. It's made out coral/algae bodies it help maintain a little ca your ph etc.
 
My RO water is 0 amonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, about a 7.3 Ph.....I know it isn't causing the problem, we just set it up 2 months ago & the filters are still fairly white.....I am trying to get up the nerve to swap out the coral for sand....You guys can :argue: out the details of play vs live sand....I really want the critters & bacteria that are in the LS....I was at a couple stores today looking for piping big enough to suck out the substrade a little at a time & replace it with LS with a funnel connected to the large flexible tubing so I could place the sand where I want it...wadda ya think?????
 
since i used it in my freshwater fish tank. also it says on the bag that don't use it in aquariums.
 
read live sand directions carefuly. i read on oragonite, it should keep nitrates at check, that you can't put fish in with it right away. maybe i misunderstood. also wanted to note that i just stured my sand from the bottom up on one side of the tank and it looks like that helped by dropping my nitrates down to 20ppm. i'll do another side tomorrow. can't remember who recomended it, but i really apriciate it. hope it will hold for longer than a day. watch out for those bristle worms, i'm stuck all over my hand with the spines. the guys on this forum are very helpful and good at this stuff, i tell u.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom