high nitrates!!

fishman0729

fishman0729

Member
hi for some reason my nitrates go up in a couple of days. I have CC as my substrate. I am thinking of switching to live sand, but can i do this now since i have fish already? I also heard that i can use play sand and then seed it with a bag of live sand. I have a 55gal so how many pounds of sand should i be dumping in there? I don't have any LR, will this help also if i get some LR? I don't have a skimmer on the tank only a wet-dry and a fluval 404 as filtration
Thanks for all the advice <img src="graemlins//confused.gif" border="0" alt="[confused]" />
 
jeo

jeo

Member
A skimmer will help, so will a dsb. You can use play sand and seed it with livesand. I would say about 100-150 lbs of sand would give you a 4" dsb. People have done this before with fish in the tank. If you add playsand it will cloud a lot, even if you rinse it first. You should probably put your fish in a different tank or a bucket during the process. Live rock will also provide bio filtration.
 
fishman0729

fishman0729

Member
ok so how much Live Sand should i mix with how much play sand, and the play sand i have is somewhat orange, should i use white play sand or will the orange colored one do just fine..
 
jeo

jeo

Member
the color is really your preference. I think white is a little more natural looking but that s just my opinion. The more live sand the better, although a small amount will be fine. If I were you I would probably mix about 20 lbs of live sand with 100 or so pounds of play sand. Make sure you rinse the playsand out to remove the dust before you put it in your tank.
 
fishman0729

fishman0729

Member
i dumped some sand in my tank and mixed it with the crushed coral this afternoon. The sand is a little dark but it will lighten up when i mix it better. The tank REALLY became CLOUDY!!!!. How long will it take to clear up again. Also i forgot ro rinse the sand before placing it in the tank, does this really matter.
Thanks
 
mb4000

mb4000

Member
How old is your tank. Your tank is going to have nitrates for quite awhile no matter what you do. read up on DSB's before you do anything more. A DSB will be about 4-6 inches deep. That is alot of space in a 55 gal. The DSB will take probably 6 months to start working and hopefully you won't have fish that turn it all up. For a fish only I would either keep your C/C and just clean it when you do water changes, or go with a 1-2 inch SB and control your Nitrates with your water changes that you hopefully are doing anyways. Nitrates have to get pretty high before they start effecting fish. Keep them below 40 or so with Water changes and you should be fine. How much do you feed your fish and what fish do you have. Get yourself a skimmer in place of either the fluval or wet dry.
 
fishman0729

fishman0729

Member
the thank is about 5 months old. I already dumped some sand in thier.. What would be the reading on nitrates that i should worry about.
 
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