more help with trates and phosphates

[salt210]

ok.so I have been in a never ending battle with both nitrates and phosphates for a while now. one of the recommended actions was add a fuge and I did. the readings have not changed. first Ill list my setup. tank is a 210 with a wet/dry with bioballs, nautilus PS, 10g fuge filled with chaeto( tight space under tank). monday of this week when I got home I completely cleaned out the filter. vacuumed the bottom of it out and rinsed half of the bioballs with vinegar. the stock list on the tank is
5in volitan, 3in stars and stripes, 4in koran, 2ft zebra moray, and 5 misc damsels. Im going to pick up some more vinegar on my way home today to clean the other half of the bioballs.
oh and the substrate is CC and I only clean the top layer of it

 

[salt210]

sorry about the long post just tried to put as much info as I could think of

 

[jerryatrick]

The results you are looking for could take some time. Before I added my refuge my phospates were at .20 and my nitrates were around 10. Took 1 month for the phosphates and nitrates to become untraceable.
I am sure you have heard this before but CC has been known to cause high nitrates. You could try slowly removing the CC. I know their other members here who have recently performed this action.

 

[fattony]

agreed start replacing the CC with Oolitic Sand. Do 1/3rd of the tank at a time and you should be ok. Also get the Bioballs out of the sump, they are Nitrate factories. For you Phosphates, Do large waterchanges every couple weeks (about 1/3rd) and start running some GFO you will see the Phosphates decrease and then you can stop using the GFO and let the fuge do the rest. Also, how often and what are you feeding. The battle with Phosphates may be futile with the species you have chose to keep. The require continuous messy feedings and that is the likely source of you Phosphates.Are you using RODI or Distilled water? Or are you just using tap? if you are using tap, then the next fix is buying an RODI (airwaterice.com is reasonable and fairly inexpensive for a decent 5 stage unit)

 

[salt210]

up until recently I was using ro/di but a misshap almost 2 weeks ago cost me my unit. so until I can get the money for a new one I have to use conditioned tap. don't want to sound like an idiot but what's GFO? currently the eel, puffer and lion are fed every 2 days and only what they consume. I know by watching them what you mean by messy. the lion doesn't really make a mess and the puffer makes a slight one. the eel just disturbs the substrate when trying to get the shrimp down

 

[jerryatrick]

Originally Posted by salt210
http:///forum/post/2736735
up until recently I was using ro/di but a misshap almost 2 weeks ago cost me my unit. so until I can get the money for a new one I have to use conditioned tap. don't want to sound like an idiot but what's GFO? currently the eel, puffer and lion are fed every 2 days and only what they consume. I know by watching them what you mean by messy. the lion doesn't really make a mess and the puffer makes a slight one. the eel just disturbs the substrate when trying to get the shrimp down
When do you think you will be able to purchase another RO/DI unit? For such a large tank it would be expensive to buy bottled RO water. But to be honest with you I would rather see you buy 20 gallons of RO water and cut back on the water changes until you get a new unit. Unless of course you don't have phosphates in your tap water.

 

[salt210]

I will test for them when I get home. when I was still able to use the RO/DI I did test for both phates and trates and neither were present. that was when I was first trying to get the problem solved before adding the fuge. as for when I can get another one im not quite sure. both jobs are slow right now

 

[nycbob]

ur livestocks u hv will cause high nitrate. as stated above, the only way to reduce it is water change. since its a fowlr wih no corals, high phosphate and slight nitrate in the water shouldnt be an issue.

 

[salt210]

what about a kalkwasser drip for the phates? it was recommended to me to look into that by another member in one of my threads. I am wanting to try more demanding creatures that's why I want/ need to get this figured out.

 

[sly]

Originally Posted by salt210
http:///forum/post/2736664
oh and the substrate is CC and I only clean the top layer of it
How deep is your CC? Others have mentioned that you should replace it with sand but I disagree completely. CC works fine but it has to be around an inch deep or so... Not any deeper.
CC does not function like a deep sand bed and so many people mistakenly make it too deep. Because it does not pack as tightly as sand, you won't get any anaerobic zones deep in the cc like you will with sand. This means that oxygen gets through to the CC and that kills the nitrogen absorbing bacteria. Hence this is why most people say that CC will cause nitrates. It will not if you keep it shallow.
You want to keep it shallow so that detritus doesn't build up in the lower layers. You want your cleanup crew to be able to get to the junk on the bottom so that they can process it before it decays into nitrates. Also, vacuuming lightly is not recommended. That's what you do if you have sand... but with CC you can clean it more thoroughly and get more of the junk out of the tank. People with deep sand beds can not clean the lower layers because they are relying on the nitrogen absorbing bacteria to clean the tank. If you vigorously clean sand, you not only create a sand storm but you expose the bacteria to oxygen which kills it and can crash the tank.
Lower your CC base to about an inch or so deep and then vacuum it very well. Make sure you have a good cleanup crew and plenty of live rock. You will not have any nitrate problems. I have used CC for 7 years and the last time I had to clean it was April of 2007. My clean up crew does the rest.
You mentioned you have a refugium. Do you have any sand in it? If so then how deep? I had a problem with nitrates once and found out it was because I only had about and inch of sand in the fuge which was causing nitrates. I didn't keep a cleanup crew in the fuge and so tank sludge would accumulate in the fuge. Over time it would release nitrates. I added more sand until it was about 5 inches deep and the nitrates went away. If I had had a cleanup crew in the fuge then maybe it wouldn't have happened but I keep plants in there and I didn't want the crabs to damage them.
Anyway, in my case, the nitrate problem was caused by using too little sand... not because of using crushed coral.

 

[spiderwoman]

If I were you, this is what I'd do...
- remove CC and switch to LS
- remove bioballs and put miracle mud/cheato/caulerpa/xenia OR LS/LR/same micro algea in the wet/dry
OR you need to make sure you vacuum your CC well and do larger water changes to bring the levels down.