Great photos. So much of this aquarium stuff is beyond our know how and willingness to try to control things. I think we should do our best and then let nature run her course. You remind me of the guy (noskimmer?) who hasn't done water changes in forever but is obviously doing something right because his tank kicks bootie. Maybe you have found some secret!
My nitrates are a little high.
- Thread starter kcress
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1wizz
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Top looking fish Kcress, good on you,
I never worried about nates for 3 years until i got a test kit, first i panicked when it showed 125ppm then I did massive water changes, still no better off, then I got a better test kit, now better off but results in the 60+ppm carried on fighting the battle for two years finally got them down to below 15ppm and lost my prised regal to stress induced white spot and my blue check gobie R.I.P
Wish I'd let it be.
Is this hobby hard or do we make it so????????????
I never worried about nates for 3 years until i got a test kit, first i panicked when it showed 125ppm then I did massive water changes, still no better off, then I got a better test kit, now better off but results in the 60+ppm carried on fighting the battle for two years finally got them down to below 15ppm and lost my prised regal to stress induced white spot and my blue check gobie R.I.P
Wish I'd let it be.
Is this hobby hard or do we make it so????????????
i totally agree here that your fish are beautiful and have become accustom to the nitrate levels and conditions in your tank. adding new stock would not work obviously. i personally wouldn't even risk changing your set up with these fish at this point unless you were super careful about it as it would probably kill them... i suppose you could try to acclimate them very slowly to a new set up but it could be tragic!
I ran high trates for so long without any adverse affects, except for my guilt. Funny thing was, that I sort of left it being high for soooo long and finally went out and got the NSW for the change and that is how my "water change is long over due?" thread started.. something happened! Dunno what.
Your basic cycle,
1. Introduce ammonia
2. Nitrite appears
3. Ammonia disappears
4. Nitrate appears
5. Nitrite disappears
6. Something else appears ????? ( if we don’t skim it out possibly)
7. Nitrate disappears... ?
Maybe very wrong, I dunno...
Your basic cycle,
1. Introduce ammonia
2. Nitrite appears
3. Ammonia disappears
4. Nitrate appears
5. Nitrite disappears
6. Something else appears ????? ( if we don’t skim it out possibly)
7. Nitrate disappears... ?
Maybe very wrong, I dunno...
I gotta chime in here. I battled nitrates for a number of years - and during that time lost not a single fish. I had to bring some back because of their size - and that was rotten. 
While nitrates at these sky-high levels (I was so far off every chart available) don't harm the fish, it's just nice to get them down... I don't know how it affects snails, in particular - but while those lived, they also died, in my tank. This is an old setup, mind you. It became a challenge to get those nitrates down because I wanted some basic corals. I'll tell ya one thing. Water changes? Forget it. That's not even a bandaid. With nitrates this high, you can do a 30% water change and you won't even tease the test strip.
And if you go all fresh, it will be polluted again in no time.
With crushed coral substrates, people who got their nitrates under check had to use some pretty darn elaborate mechanical filtration.
We had a system that ran over 5 years with no water changes, and did not have any measurable nitrates. What changed? The DSB. There was no skimmer. I will add that I had razor caulerpa, and I can't preach the virtues of that stuff enough. Still, without any the DSB kept those nitrates down. At no point did I introduce new fish that died because of the nitrates.
I'm not preaching to chase nitrates - in fact it bothered the yarn outta me that I couldn't achieve even the highest color on the test strip. I feel a need to help with the fact that high nitrates do not adversely affect fish. I'm sure at some time, any tank can get unruly enough to kill the fish. But nitrates off the chart? Haven't seen it. People need worry more about ich, and fish diseases. It's just good to seperate "theory from practice."
I also don't want people to think not doing water changes is something one should strive to achieve, as though that "makes a healthy tank." Certainly good chems come in with the salt mix, and the only way to get that in is to DO water changes. But FOWLR without corals don't need all the coral nutrients - fresh oxygenated water at the right salinity is most important for the fish, and you don't want ammonia, obviously. When we didn't do water changes, I will say that I introduced more NEW WATER than a good percentage of people who did water changes. How? I ran open topped, fan-blown surfaces, large open sumps - and lights so dang hot that everything added up to a lot of evaporation. Key point, here. Please don't go thinking that "no water changes" means these fish are sitting in the same stagnant pond of pisswater. 'Cause they are not. It's easy to get the thought that someone not doing water changes has a septic tank for their fish. No, with a DSB you don't even have nitrates. And fresh water comes in continually. The only thing that doesn't evap is the salt, but you can even dose to make up what would come in on the salt. Our nicest reef tank went changeless as well.
Probably one of the most pronounced differences is in the water clarity. It may not seem like a big difference, but when we broke down the changeless systems, that water had a much more "yellow" tint than water we used for topoff. I'm not a biologist, so I don't know if it was nutrient rich, or what. This was in the nitrate-free reef tank. Probably very nutrient rich water. Again, not a bad thing. I think my corals fared very well - and there's no doubt my alveopora thrived because of it. Had I stripped and polished the water, it would have 86'd it, because they do poorly in polished water. When we used to collect natural seawater - that was yellow green and stinky. But nutrient rich? Man, that stuff was awesome for tanks. Anyway, I guess I wanted to chime in with my thoughts that superbly healthy tanks are possible without doing water changes, but those nitrates??? While the fish may do fine it's just a recipe for invert disaster. With DSBs, who's got nitrate problems, anyway, these days??? You gotta work at it, nowadays.
Again... love that goby, noskimmer.
While nitrates at these sky-high levels (I was so far off every chart available) don't harm the fish, it's just nice to get them down... I don't know how it affects snails, in particular - but while those lived, they also died, in my tank. This is an old setup, mind you. It became a challenge to get those nitrates down because I wanted some basic corals. I'll tell ya one thing. Water changes? Forget it. That's not even a bandaid. With nitrates this high, you can do a 30% water change and you won't even tease the test strip.
And if you go all fresh, it will be polluted again in no time. With crushed coral substrates, people who got their nitrates under check had to use some pretty darn elaborate mechanical filtration.
We had a system that ran over 5 years with no water changes, and did not have any measurable nitrates. What changed? The DSB. There was no skimmer. I will add that I had razor caulerpa, and I can't preach the virtues of that stuff enough. Still, without any the DSB kept those nitrates down. At no point did I introduce new fish that died because of the nitrates.
I'm not preaching to chase nitrates - in fact it bothered the yarn outta me that I couldn't achieve even the highest color on the test strip. I feel a need to help with the fact that high nitrates do not adversely affect fish. I'm sure at some time, any tank can get unruly enough to kill the fish. But nitrates off the chart? Haven't seen it. People need worry more about ich, and fish diseases. It's just good to seperate "theory from practice."
I also don't want people to think not doing water changes is something one should strive to achieve, as though that "makes a healthy tank." Certainly good chems come in with the salt mix, and the only way to get that in is to DO water changes. But FOWLR without corals don't need all the coral nutrients - fresh oxygenated water at the right salinity is most important for the fish, and you don't want ammonia, obviously. When we didn't do water changes, I will say that I introduced more NEW WATER than a good percentage of people who did water changes. How? I ran open topped, fan-blown surfaces, large open sumps - and lights so dang hot that everything added up to a lot of evaporation. Key point, here. Please don't go thinking that "no water changes" means these fish are sitting in the same stagnant pond of pisswater.
'Cause they are not. It's easy to get the thought that someone not doing water changes has a septic tank for their fish. No, with a DSB you don't even have nitrates. And fresh water comes in continually. The only thing that doesn't evap is the salt, but you can even dose to make up what would come in on the salt. Our nicest reef tank went changeless as well.Probably one of the most pronounced differences is in the water clarity. It may not seem like a big difference, but when we broke down the changeless systems, that water had a much more "yellow" tint than water we used for topoff. I'm not a biologist, so I don't know if it was nutrient rich, or what. This was in the nitrate-free reef tank. Probably very nutrient rich water. Again, not a bad thing. I think my corals fared very well - and there's no doubt my alveopora thrived because of it. Had I stripped and polished the water, it would have 86'd it, because they do poorly in polished water. When we used to collect natural seawater - that was yellow green and stinky. But nutrient rich? Man, that stuff was awesome for tanks. Anyway, I guess I wanted to chime in with my thoughts that superbly healthy tanks are possible without doing water changes, but those nitrates??? While the fish may do fine it's just a recipe for invert disaster. With DSBs, who's got nitrate problems, anyway, these days??? You gotta work at it, nowadays.
Again... love that goby, noskimmer.