Nitrate and phosphate dilema
- Thread starter johnl
- Start date
T
thomas712
Guest
John - your orignial question regarding phosphate and nitrates are simple enough. Do a water change? This is the simplest thing you can do to help remove the PO4 and NO3's at this point if they are as high as you think they are, and at this point if they are really bad do up to a 50% water change. As long as you have an established tank it should recover just fine. Adding a phosphate remover at this point would take to long. So the water change is your best fastest bet. USE RO/DI WATER.
With regards to the growth of coralline algea you will need to keep your Calcium at 400 -450, and Alk of 10 -14 DKH, mag 1300 -1500. This is also where the water change will help replenish natural buffers and keep the system in balance. You will probably want a two part buffering system like B-Ionic to add after you get things balanced.
With the substrate that you have, you seem to have the reverse crushed coral and sand with CC on the bottom and sand on top. The CC will eventually work its way back on top, law of nature. With CC on the bottom you will have problems: It is my thought that with the CC on bottom you will not be able to build any anoxic areas that will be able to proccess the nitrates and waste, therefore once the detrus gets underneath the sand it is traped in the crushed coral and it becomes a nutrient sink that will pollute your tank.
If it were me I would only have one or the other of substrates, I would not combine the two. CC you can vaccum and maintain. Sand you only have to keep waterflow high to carry the detrus in suspension in order to have the protien skimmer remove it + the wet/dry or other machanical filtration.
Does that help?
Thomas
With regards to the growth of coralline algea you will need to keep your Calcium at 400 -450, and Alk of 10 -14 DKH, mag 1300 -1500. This is also where the water change will help replenish natural buffers and keep the system in balance. You will probably want a two part buffering system like B-Ionic to add after you get things balanced.
With the substrate that you have, you seem to have the reverse crushed coral and sand with CC on the bottom and sand on top. The CC will eventually work its way back on top, law of nature. With CC on the bottom you will have problems: It is my thought that with the CC on bottom you will not be able to build any anoxic areas that will be able to proccess the nitrates and waste, therefore once the detrus gets underneath the sand it is traped in the crushed coral and it becomes a nutrient sink that will pollute your tank.
If it were me I would only have one or the other of substrates, I would not combine the two. CC you can vaccum and maintain. Sand you only have to keep waterflow high to carry the detrus in suspension in order to have the protien skimmer remove it + the wet/dry or other machanical filtration.
Does that help?
Thomas
johnl
Member
Thank you thomas just wondering should I rip out the cc big mess or leave it it is seperated with garden fabric black stuff with fine holes then can I just replace it wuth regular sand or do i need that live stuff like agra alive I did a 5gallon water change tank looks great I added a phosphate pad aftter i did that
T
thomas712
Guest
You really do have a lot of fish in that 30 gallon. This alone will keep high nitrates, but the fish will not mind so much as the corals will. From all my reading corals will start to react to NO3's when the get over 50ppm, and it just gets worse from there.
Is your tank on a wood stand? If so you will not be able to do this. But if it is on one of those iron stands you will be able to take a flashlight and look at the underneath of the tank and be able to see what is building up under the CC.
If your tank looks good to you and you think that you will be able to control the PO4's and NO3's, and your corals and livestock are not suffering then leave your substrate alone. I hate like heck to tell someone to take aprart their tank just because they did it a way that I would not.
I would guess that your PO4's are coming from feeding frozen foods or your water source. I would guess that your NO3's are coming from overstocking, overfeeding, and quit possably traped nutrients in the CC.
How often do you feed? What are you using for food? flakes, shrimp brine..etc..?
If you decide that you would like to remove the CC then let us know and we will come up with some plan to make this as easy as possible with the least amount of stress on the livestock. You could replace the CC with whateve sugar sized sand that your LFS carries.
Thomas
Is your tank on a wood stand? If so you will not be able to do this. But if it is on one of those iron stands you will be able to take a flashlight and look at the underneath of the tank and be able to see what is building up under the CC.
If your tank looks good to you and you think that you will be able to control the PO4's and NO3's, and your corals and livestock are not suffering then leave your substrate alone. I hate like heck to tell someone to take aprart their tank just because they did it a way that I would not.
I would guess that your PO4's are coming from feeding frozen foods or your water source. I would guess that your NO3's are coming from overstocking, overfeeding, and quit possably traped nutrients in the CC.
How often do you feed? What are you using for food? flakes, shrimp brine..etc..?
If you decide that you would like to remove the CC then let us know and we will come up with some plan to make this as easy as possible with the least amount of stress on the livestock. You could replace the CC with whateve sugar sized sand that your LFS carries.
Thomas