High nitrates!!!
- Thread starter rightnow
- Start date
I do a 30% water change every 3 weeks or so. I have 2 small sailfins, a blue tang, and a lawnmower bleeny. I also have some frogspawn, star and button polyps, and a few othe pieces of soft corals. I also have 2 Bubble Tip anenomes being hosted by a small maroon clown. I know I need a larger tank when my fish start growing and I will eventually geta 125 or larger. I also added a Mangrove plant because I heard that would help. I do have a refugium that is setup in a seperate 5 gallon tank that is not connected to my tank at all. I was thinking of a way to incorporate the refugium under my tank with just using one powerhead or pump, is this possible. I have wooden floors so there cannot be any water spillage and I am scared if I use 2 pumps one might go out and that would be trouble. Beside xenia is there anyother coral that will help lower the nitrates. I have about 5-6 watts per gallon of water and I have a small problem with Detritus in the sand bed. I used regular sand for my sandbed and there are alos rocks in the back part of the tank. Does a deeper sand bed help? My tank is about 6-7 months old. For 2 powerheads for water movement, should I add a third?
LIke I said earlier I also have 50lbs. of live rock. I guess using my seperate refugium would help but like I said it is just in a seperate 5 gallon tank, which I can move to a 10 gallon if needed. Let me know if there is a simple way to add the refugium under my tank, Thanks
LIke I said earlier I also have 50lbs. of live rock. I guess using my seperate refugium would help but like I said it is just in a seperate 5 gallon tank, which I can move to a 10 gallon if needed. Let me know if there is a simple way to add the refugium under my tank, Thanks
Your tank sounds overstocked. You have some big poopers there and the fact that they are in a tank that is too small only adds to the issues. You need to increase the depth of your sand bed to a minimum of 4- 5 inches. This will help. Get rid of the canister filter as they are notorious nitrate traps. You should have 2lbs of liverock per gallon so you may want to increase the amount of rock also. These along with a refugium will hopefully give you long term relief. Also, for immediate relief start doing 20% waterchanges per week with RO water until you get those nitrates under control. Also, if absolutely nothing else get a good efficient protein skimmer with that bioload I am suprised you are not battling all kinds of cyano/algae etc..........
You'll need to get a very large tank for the two nasso's not to kill each other 150+. As lorna stated you are way overstocked you might consider a few infaunal critters to help reduce the detritus on your sand. You also should do water changes maybe more than 20% per week you're readings are very bad for anemones. You'll want to slowly lower your nitrates to less than 10 ppm.
hth
Max
hth
Max
