nitrate filter

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elan

Guest
hello, i am new to the saltwater tank and my LFS has some nitrate filters they want to get rid of. I didnt get a manufacturuer's name, but they are white and completely sealed. The LFS said that they should last aproximately 5 years at which time you toss it out and get a new one... they are willing to move them at around $50.00 rather than the $150 they normally sell for... they have been around the store for a while and the owner just wants them out.
Anyone have any suggestions?
 
yosemite sam

yosemite sam

Active Member
A lot of fish in a still-cycling tank is probably a big reason for the high nitrates. If you want to lower your nitrates, I would suggest putting in a Deep Sand Bed (DSB) and/or a refugium. Your tank is very young and you don't have anything too expensive or delicate, so now would be a good time to put in a DSB. This is the way to go for long-term success. If you have a sand bed 5" plus deep, denitrifiying bacteria develop at the bottom the consume the nitrates and convert them into gas that bubbles away. A refugium, in which you grow macro algea that "eats" nitrates, also helps a lot. There are several posts on the board on how to do/make both of these things. Many of those chemical filters are stop-gap solutions. It may work OK, but you will have a much healthier tank going with a DSB. I assume by the lighting that you will have some corals. You will thank yourself later for investing the time and money now. HTH
 
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elan

Guest
what exacly is a dsb? and how much money am i looking at with my current configuration?
 
yosemite sam

yosemite sam

Active Member
A DSB is a deep sand bed. Literally, that's all it is, just a deep layer of sand, usually around 5" instead of the 1"-2" that you see on a lot of tanks. The easist way to put one in is, take out your live rock and critters, and put in more sand until you have about 5" worth, they wait a bit (a day to a few hours depending on how dirty the water gets) and put the critters/live rock back in. The way I did it was to use cheap crushed coral (cc) for most of the base, and then use something finer grained for the final top later so it looks nice. If your 135 is roughly 6' by 2', it will probably cost you around $50-$75. A lot of people use playsand for the final layer, which is pretty cheap. Southdown is one of the most popular brands, and I think is like $5-$10 bucks for a 50lb bag. If your sand bed is 1"-1.5" you'll need 2 or 3 40lb bags of cc and 2 bags of sand.
 
yosemite sam

yosemite sam

Active Member
Thats a good point. I was told to go with the cc layer and then sand as it lets things move a little easier through the bed and avoids things getting too settled and compacted at the bottom. I don't know if that is really such a problem, but that is what I have been told. Also, if you have a few inches of sand on the top, unless you have some large sand sifting animals, it shouldn't settle that much, should it? One way to avoid the mixing problem is to put fiberglass screen between the cc and sand layers that is big enough to let worms, etc. move up and down, but not so big that the cc moves up.
 
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elan

Guest
from what i understand, i can make a DSB in a refuguim.. if this is the case, are there any guidelines on how big it should be and how much lighting they require?
thanks!!
 
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