Crushed Coral and LS substrate mix. Am I Doomed to High Nitrates?

[capnbob]

Howdy,
Not too long ago I posted about how my nitrates were at about 160 ppm. Since then, I've been doing tons of water changes, as well as swapped out my 2 Maxi-Jet 600's with Hydor Flo's with two Maxi-Jet 1200's now and their almost down to 0 ppm now. Yay!
Anyway, some folks on here were suggesting that my high nitrates were due to the fact that I have a 3/4 crushed coral & 1/4 live sand mix for a substrate. Apparently that's aquarium no-no.
Another thing that could have brought my nitrates up was the fact that I was feeding my fish Formula One without filtering it and so the watering gunk was going in the tank with each feeding.
Anyway, here's my questiong now that I have better water flow and I'm feeding properly and my nitrates are down to 0, are they just going to go back up again because of my substrate?
Here's the tank specs:
46 gallon bowfront. Emperor 280 filter. Coralife Super Skimmer (small one for up to 65 gallons.) Two Maxi-Jet 1200's with Hydor Flo water deflectors. About 50-70 lbs. of live rock. Current USA 36" Power Compacts w/ 1 - Dual Daylight Lamp (10,000K and 6,700K) and 1 - Dual Actinic Lamp (420nm and 460nm).
Occupants:
Scarlet Hermit Crabs
Royal Gramma Basslet
Blue Devil damselfish
Four Stripe Damselfish
Red spotted Hawkfish
Bicolor Blenny
Coral Banded Shrimp
Serpent Starfish
Percula Clownfish
Thanks for any advice,
Bobby

 

[crawdaddy]

I have the same tank with crushed coral, my nitrites are high too. So I am thinking of switching my cc with ls. I have 75 lbs of lr and have had a blue damsel for 2 wks now. I still have not bought any lights yet because I don't want to buy the wrong ones or not enough and have to change it later because I didn't know what I was doing. The lighting that you have is it enough to grow anything or are you going to have to buy more later? I would appreciate your advise and a brief description on what you have done with yours.
Thank you

 

[capnbob]

Originally Posted by CrawDaddy
I have the same tank with crushed coral, my nitrites are high too. So I am thinking of switching my cc with ls. I have 75 lbs of lr and have had a blue damsel for 2 wks now. I still have not bought any lights yet because I don't want to buy the wrong ones or not enough and have to change it later because I didn't know what I was doing. The lighting that you have is it enough to grow anything or are you going to have to buy more later? I would appreciate your advise and a brief description on what you have done with yours.
Thank you
Honestly, I'm the wrong guy to ask for advice. I'm relatively new at this hobby.

 

[legendary]

to address your CC question.... Some would say not to use CC because the diameter of the grains is to large for the bacteria needed, the sand bed is very important to the eco system of your tank, [you may find a post or 2 about substrates, ]this does somtime cause some problems with the tanks nitro cycle so you have to do water changes more often, so if there down to 0 now you may be fine. i dont know how long your tank has been active you may need to us more info on your tank, like do you have any lr , snails , crabs, corals , ect ... your lighting is fine for a fish only tank if you intend to get corals you will need to upgrade MH sorry this so short kinda in a hurry if have other questions feel free to ask and we will do our best to give you the best possible solution..

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by Capnbob
Howdy,
Not too long ago I posted about how my nitrates were at about 160 ppm. Since then, I've been doing tons of water changes, as well as swapped out my 2 Maxi-Jet 600's with Hydor Flo's with two Maxi-Jet 1200's now and their almost down to 0 ppm now. Yay!
Anyway, some folks on here were suggesting that my high nitrates were due to the fact that I have a 3/4 crushed coral & 1/4 live sand mix for a substrate. Apparently that's aquarium no-no.
Another thing that could have brought my nitrates up was the fact that I was feeding my fish Formula One without filtering it and so the watering gunk was going in the tank with each feeding.
Anyway, here's my questiong now that I have better water flow and I'm feeding properly and my nitrates are down to 0, are they just going to go back up again because of my substrate?
Here's the tank specs:
46 gallon bowfront. Emperor 280 filter. Coralife Super Skimmer (small one for up to 65 gallons.) Two Maxi-Jet 1200's with Hydor Flo water deflectors. About 50-70 lbs. of live rock. Current USA 36" Power Compacts w/ 1 - Dual Daylight Lamp (10,000K and 6,700K) and 1 - Dual Actinic Lamp (420nm and 460nm).
Occupants:
Scarlet Hermit Crabs
Royal Gramma Basslet
Blue Devil damselfish
Four Stripe Damselfish
Red spotted Hawkfish
Bicolor Blenny
Coral Banded Shrimp
Serpent Starfish
Percula Clownfish
Thanks for any advice,
Bobby
There's been a posting on here recently about how the guy change out the CC to live sand. I believe here's how he did it if I remembered right. During water changes he would siphon the substrate out on one corner and placing some separation thing between the empty spot and the CC(can't remember what he used, but I think by using a piece of plastic cut outs would be fine, IMO) then he would put some sand with water into a rubber maid container with caps on and open it once it's near the bottom and dump the sand into the empty spot slowly and gradually change out all the cc so you won't shock the tank. That way the sand can be seeded if you have live rock and become live sand eventually. I do have a 46 bow front that has CC at the moment, but I don't have any problem with it yet, my other 55 has sand with LR so when I'm done adding LR into that tank, I will probably take down the 46 and start over with agronite sand, it's either that or I'll try this very process that I just mentioned to you. I hate to lose any fish, so I may just start over since I don't really know what this can do, but the guy says it works. You probably can find that post by searching this forum at the top by clicking on search. Good Luck! :happyfish

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by CrawDaddy
I have the same tank with crushed coral, my nitrites are high too. So I am thinking of switching my cc with ls. I have 75 lbs of lr and have had a blue damsel for 2 wks now. I still have not bought any lights yet because I don't want to buy the wrong ones or not enough and have to change it later because I didn't know what I was doing. The lighting that you have is it enough to grow anything or are you going to have to buy more later? I would appreciate your advise and a brief description on what you have done with yours.
Thank you
For your lighting question, if you really want to get into corals, better look into MH lighting system. For your sized tank, the lights wouldn't cost as much as mine on a 55. It end up costing me $721 for the whole setup and shipping all together which isn't too bad, I've seen it higher yet. It'll probably cost you around $500-600 depending where your buying your lights. Look what I have posted above this post about changing out the CC. At the sametime I have heard others who have success with soft corals with PC, but MH is better. It's amazing what it puts out once you have it set up. I would get it with VHOs if possible, it's better then PC. IF you want to know where I bought my lights, e-mail me cause I don't think you can post that on here. Mikeyjer@comcast.net :happyfish

 

[promisetbg]

I made all the newbie mistakes...seven damsels,CC substrate,etc.
After learning about forums,and finding out sand would have been better,I started adding LS to the tank from the Keys.As I would add it over the CC,the CC would eventually work it's way to the top.I would carefully syphon it off.I always did it in small increments...about ten to fifteen LBs. or so.
That was three years ago when I started.My tank has probably 90% LS now{I'm sure there is a little CC in the back at the bottom still} and I have never had a problem with nitrates.

 

[stanlalee]

I have crushed coral and never have a nitrate problem with single 50% monthly water changes (with gravel vacuum and RO water). If you have a large tank that might not be feasable (mine is only a 30 gallon). Never even reaches 10ppm after 30 days. Never have had a so called nitrate spike from stirring up the CC (which I dont even believe happens but thats another matter). I dont have but about 1/4" CC bed and my crabs/shrimp and lawnmover blenny turn it over constantly. I havent had a problem with nitrates and crush coral since I stopped using an underground filter (even then I could get it down to about 10ppm and they never rose much beyond 40ppm with the same water change schedule). My shrimp and crustasceans shrived in both (with and without UGF) and from what I've read they arent tolerant of high nitrate levels.
I do think mixing the sand and CC is a mistake because it prevents the crush coral from being agitated like it should be but hell its already done so change water/agitate accordingly based on nitrate/phospate readings.

 

[crawdaddy]

Thank you, I will email you later to get that info. I really appreciate your time, it was very helpful.