Nitrate question???

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by bgrae001
OK, So last night I pulled out my Bioballs and boiled them for 30 minutes.
to clean bioballs all you need to do is pull them out of the wet dry and swish them around vigorously in a bucket of old tank water to knock any debris off them. that way you can keep all your benificial bacteria. if you do this to a large portion of them everytime you do a water change they will never be a source of excess nitrates.

 

[bgrae001]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
to clean bioballs all you need to do is pull them out of the wet dry and swish them around vigorously in a bucket of old tank water to knock any debris off them. that way you can keep all your benificial bacteria. if you do this to a large portion of them everytime you do a water change they will never be a source of excess nitrates.
The reason I boiled them is that they had a lot of gunk in them that I couldn't rinse out.
I would love to turn my w/d into a fuge but I'm not sure how.

 

[bgrae001]

I tested the water and no change. Everything is still the same. It's like I didn't even do anything. I'll do another water change either tomorrow or Sat morning to see if that helps any. I might just have to face that my tank will run at about 15 for Nitrates.
I guess the big part with my other tank running 0 Nitrates could have been that there was no coral in the tank and I ran a fuge.

 

[farslayer]

What fish do you have in there?

 

[weberian]

I recommend better pre-filtration before the bioballs, so they don't get so dirty, plus cleaning them more frequently. Also, I don't know of anyone that feeds a saltwater tank daily - it's just too much food.

 

[bgrae001]

Originally Posted by Farslayer
What fish do you have in there?
2 black and white clowns
1 LMB
1 6 line wrasse
1 radiant wrasse
1 Atlantic Blue Tang
1 Red striped dwarf angel
1 cleaner shrimp
a few snails and hermit crabs

 

[bgrae001]

Originally Posted by Weberian
I recommend better pre-filtration before the bioballs, so they don't get so dirty, plus cleaning them more frequently. Also, I don't know of anyone that feeds a saltwater tank daily - it's just too much food.
I do agree that I could use a better pre filter. The gunk that ends up in the bioballs comes from the veggie sheets I feed to my Tang.
I feed phytoplankton for my Clam and several LPS corals daily. I feed the fish 3 times daily but very little each feeding. I feed Prime reef in the morning and MariPearls in the afternoon and Brine soaked in vitamins and garlic at night.
Some people could say its too much food. I judge it by the amount of algae that grows. Which is minimal, my LMB is starving and I'm going to have to find it a new home.
The main reason I feed so often is because it keeps my Dwarf Angel away from my clam.

 

[weberian]

Sounds good, imho. Let us know how your levels turn out after a couple of water changes since you cleaned the b-balls. I've got Pom pom xenia and xenia elongata - they're touching each other. I hope that doesn't cause a problem. Will be trying to move them apart.

 

[azfishgal]

Originally Posted by Weberian
Also, I don't know of anyone that feeds a saltwater tank daily - it's just too much food.
Really? I feed my tank twice a day, and when I get my Anthias I will probably move it up to three times a day. Almost everyone I've talked to feeds at leat once, if not twice a day, so I was a little puzzled on your comments.

With that said though the food I do feed is gone within two minutes, and the food I can't see I know won't last with the clean up crew I have. IMO if there was a problem with over feeding ammonia levels would go up, but from what I can see in this post bgrae doesn't have that problem.
Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[weberian]

Interesting. But I think if you overfeed consistently for long enough, you will get different critters growing that you didn't have before, plus algaes. You should be able to detect increases in nitrate, unless it's converted by the algaes. I guess short-term increases in feeding could be detected by ammonia, but I just think it would be difficult. To be truthful, I think a lot of this diagnosis is difficult, given the variables and the imprecise testing methods we use. I think of it as guesswork. When I had a large population boom of cirratulid (spelling?) worms, was it because of overfeeding? I don't know. Have you ever used ammonia testing to determine if you were overfeeding? Did it work? I have not tried it. You could be onto something better that will help bgrae.
I won't be saying "I don't know anyone who feeds their tank daily" anymore.

 

[bgrae001]

I've done a few water changes and now my xenia are almost fully extended. I'll do one more water change tonight and I think that will lower my nitrates to below 10.