Added fuge - Nitrate went up?

gmann1139

gmann1139

Active Member
I built an in-tank fuge and added five weeks ago. Since then, I've noticed that my nitrates, which were never above ten in the year plus I've had the tank, have gone 15,15, 20 since then.
I know the fuge is doing some good, since the cyano problem I was having disappeared within the first week, and my phosphate has dropped, but I'm a little concerned that this trend is going to continue.
Tank is 29 gallon, 34 watts lighting, lights are on ~7 hours a day. Has three fish in it right now. Feed a mix of F1 flake, f1 frozen, and Prime Reef frozen. Haven't changed amount of feeding. Did add third fish on same day as fuge, after being down to two fish for two months before that.
Fuge is a small fishbagger with holes drilled in it. It has a small Rio PH going in, and maybe a softball of chaeto in it. The sandbed in there is only an inch deep, I'm slowly stealing from my tanks to add more to the sandbed.
Is there anything I'm doing grossly wrong which could be causing the fuge to backfire on me like this?
 
frankthetank

frankthetank

Active Member
I'm not about to say this is or is not a reason. BUT, either put a DSB in your refugium or no sand at all (maybe some rubble). A shallow sand bed in your refugium really does nothing at all but collect detritus and no means to break it down.
What is your livestock?
 
gmann1139

gmann1139

Active Member
Originally Posted by FranktheTank
http:///forum/post/2709980
I'm not about to say this is or is not a reason. BUT, either put a DSB in your refugium or no sand at all (maybe some rubble). A shallow sand bed in your refugium really does nothing at all but collect detritus and no means to break it down.
What is your livestock?
I've thought about the DSB. How shallow is deep enough? 2"? 3"?
Livestock right now is a 3" SB clown, Firefish, Shrimp Goby, Blood Shrimp, and assorted hermits and snails.
Originally Posted by nacl freak
http:///forum/post/2710196
Do you have a protein skimmer?
I have a useless one in there. It skims, but its not really pulling anything out.
 
aquaguy24

aquaguy24

Active Member
protein skimmer not pulling out a lot cuz u don't have a huge bioload...and ur nitrates up maybe cuz ur fuge caused a mini cycle...and i thought no more then 1" of sand in ur fuge unless u do DSB which needs 5" or more...the macroaglea does more of the work to get rid of algea..im not an expert so i might be all wrong...
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
at this point all that shallow sand bed did was add aerobic breakdown and very little in consumption with the small amount of cheato, as frank mentioned the mini fuge is a trap for waste remove the sand and run just macro algae. you really only need sand if you want rooted algaes. or are capable of a DSB
 
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