HOB Filter

[lexluethar]

Currently I have a 30 gallon FOWLR tank. Only two damsels, a shrimp, and three hermit crabs. Been setup for about 3 months now. I have about 33 lbs of LR.
Currently I have a HOB filter and i was wondering if i should remove the filters from it. It provides filter floss as well as carbon. My problem is that my Nitrates are always high, with that much LR and only two damsels my my Nitrate count goes way up every week. I can never get it down to 0, only done 3 gallon changes every week - a few weeks i've done that twice and gotten my nitrates down to 12.5 (the lowest i've ever seen).
Could my filter floss that catches my food particles be causing this excess nitrate? I've read on places that having filter floss can cause excess nitrate. I change out the filter every week to two weeks, and wash it out every few days.
Any suggestions? Since i have some cleanup crew do i need to not worry about filtering my water?
Thanks!
Mike

 

[miaheatlvr]

Originally Posted by LexLuethar
Currently I have a 30 gallon FOWLR tank. Only two damsels, a shrimp, and three hermit crabs. Been setup for about 3 months now. I have about 33 lbs of LR.
Currently I have a HOB filter and i was wondering if i should remove the filters from it. It provides filter floss as well as carbon. My problem is that my Nitrates are always high, with that much LR and only two damsels my my Nitrate count goes way up every week. I can never get it down to 0, only done 3 gallon changes every week - a few weeks i've done that twice and gotten my nitrates down to 12.5 (the lowest i've ever seen).
Could my filter floss that catches my food particles be causing this excess nitrate? I've read on places that having filter floss can cause excess nitrate. I change out the filter every week to two weeks, and wash it out every few days.
Any suggestions? Since i have some cleanup crew do i need to not worry about filtering my water?
Thanks!
Mike
Check your Filter floss, make sure its clean, but I dont think that will cause a drastic nitrate spike, Cut down on you feeding small potions every other day. Keep up with you water chages, at least 5g per changing and maybe you might wanna think about adding some microalgae ea, Chaetomorpha alage into the tank in either a HOB refugium or INTANK FUGE..

 

[lexluethar]

Ya i wasn't sure if that was an excessive amount of nitrate. I do about 10% water changes every friday. It just seems that i'm always playing catch up with the nitrate. Every week it seems to stay a little darker (between 25 and 50) and a little more difficult to get the reading down to 12.5.
I want to get some clownfish but if i can barely keep the nitrate at a reasonable level now there is no way i could once there are more waste producing animals in the tank.