nitrate
- Thread starter sadred123
- Start date
Hi there. The best way to bring down your nitrates is with water changes. How much and how often do you usually do them?
What are your feeding patterns like? You may be able to cut down on feeding a little and/or make sure all of the food is eaten and if not, take it out.
There are different plants you can add to your refugium that'll 'soak' up the nitrates. I'm putting this site here just for some examples...
http://www.aquacon.com/vip.html
Do you have bio-balls? If so I would get rid of them (slowly though) and replace them with live rock. For an immediate decrease I would suggest the water change.
What are your feeding patterns like? You may be able to cut down on feeding a little and/or make sure all of the food is eaten and if not, take it out.
There are different plants you can add to your refugium that'll 'soak' up the nitrates. I'm putting this site here just for some examples...
http://www.aquacon.com/vip.html
Do you have bio-balls? If so I would get rid of them (slowly though) and replace them with live rock. For an immediate decrease I would suggest the water change.
Wanted to add- do you have a clean-up crew? Certain snails/hermits/shrimp/starfish/sand-sifting gobies will help 'clean-up' any leftover food as well as extra debris that may be in your tank.
i agree with 5xevy here..Sure, there are lots of chemicals and reactors you can use, but, you cant beat good old water changes...They do the job just right...
Niko
Niko
hi have about 10 snails 1 red hermit crab cleaner shrimp 1 red star fish i change about 5gallon a week top up by 10 ro water a week
You said your tank is 72/30/24- I should really know the conversion but I don't. Is this 180 gallons? I honestly think changing out 5 gallons/week is not enough. If your tank is really 180 gallons then you're really only changing about 11% of your water monthly, and that's not even including the sump water (how many gallons is that?).
The top-offs don't count as water changes (because you're not taking anything out) so I would change a higher volume of water as well as perform the water changes more often. I really think this would significantly help your nitrate problem.
Germanman
My fish are my babies
i agree with Niko and 5xevy. here more water out would really help. i would even recommend 20% changes until the nitrates go down. a good product to help reduce nitrates is Algone though.