Nitrates are still High!!
- Thread starter leona
- Start date
bot587
Member
Leona,
Do not kill yourself over high nitrates. Your gonna have to just wait. Nitrogen fixing bacteria will kick in!!!! Give them time. Until then DO NOT make another water change. This ruins the attempts at your aquarium finishing a cycling period of creating enough nitrogen fixing bacteria to control your personal tank. Time is of the essence... do not rush this by making hasty water changes.
Do not kill yourself over high nitrates. Your gonna have to just wait. Nitrogen fixing bacteria will kick in!!!! Give them time. Until then DO NOT make another water change. This ruins the attempts at your aquarium finishing a cycling period of creating enough nitrogen fixing bacteria to control your personal tank. Time is of the essence... do not rush this by making hasty water changes.
S
sebae0
Guest
is your tank done cycling? do you still have ammo or trites? if not your trates will always continue to rise unless you have lots of lr or a decent ls bed to aid in denitrifying, or both. remember not to over feed and keep the bioload low and with water changes and the above said you should see the trates slowly go down. let me know what you have and i will check back with you.
leona
Member
Originally posted by sebae0
is your tank done cycling? do you still have ammo or trites? if not your trates will always continue to rise unless you have lots of lr or a decent ls bed to aid in denitrifying, or both. remember not to over feed and keep the bioload low and with water changes and the above said you should see the trates slowly go down. let me know what you have and i will check back with you.
Sebae0,
First of all thank you for reading my babble.. Here is our full story. Our tank is 6 1/2 weeks old. We are Newbie's to SW. Fully cycled in 3 1/2 weeks. We used well water to start our tank. First we had a 29 gallon and we moved into our 75 ounce we finished cycling. We were told we might have a small cycle because we are adding more then 50% of water to the new tank. So we watched it. We did have a mini cycle. We used everything from our 29 gallon to put into our 75. Including CC ( we did not know about LS. Our LFS reccommended CC) we also added more CC still not knowing about the benifits of LS, Fluval 204 we also bought a 404 Fluval we decided to run both until we sold the 204 becuase the 204 was already established, visi-jet skimmer, (had) heater but our temp has been fine without it so we decided to take it out until winter, Oceanic Salt, Fake plants and starter fish (damsels)....
Ounce we changed everything over we upgraded what we needed to added more CC, added the 404 with our 204 fluval, We were told our skimmer would be fine, We also added 8lbs of LR, we used 46 gallons well water (not knowing about ro/di water) to fill our 75 up the rest of the way. We ALWAYS had promblems with our PH being at 7.8. Our Ph would rise with the help of Seachems marine buffer for a few hours then drop back down to 7.8 after a few hours. We were told to just wait let the CC help with raising our ph but give it time. But was still safe to add fish. So we added some more fish and then some inverts, Then we found out about the RO/DI units and that we should of used that water when we filled our 75. (Little late), we were told to do 15% water changes ounce a week to help bring our nitrates down. Our tap nitrates are in the 80's. When it goes into our tank it's about 40 and that is were it is at since 20 gallons of water changes with RO/DI water. We have been going to our local store and buying the water. Then it reccommended to change CC to LS. (financially we can't do wright now), Our LFS said that there is no help with the PH or the Nitrates and we are limited to what we will ever be able to buy. My hubby would like a reef tank with anomenes. We are still haveing problems with our PH we changed to Kent Marine Buffer. Now get this.......
KH out of tap is 3, in SW tank it is 21
PH out of tap is 6.0 in sw tank it is 7.8 with NO buffer.
Nitrates in tap are 80's in SW tank they are now since water changes 40,
Nitrites are 0
Ammonia is 0.
From what the little book tells us is that if KH is High then our PH is high also if it's low then ph is low.
Well in our 75g our KH is 20 drops and our PH is 7.8 in our 2 1/2 gallon QT our KH is 12 and our PH is stable at 8.2. Explain that one to me. (only think in our QT tank is less then a pound of LR to help cycle, whisper filter and air pump O and a temp gage)
Back to our 75 gallon, We now have in our 75 gallon is.
70-75 Pounds of Florida CC
8lbs of LR
5 fake plants with fake rock
204 & 404 Fluval Canister with 6 media trays
Visi- Jet Skimmer
NO heater
Magnet cleaner
Digital Thermostat
1 Turbo snail
2 Peppermint shrimp
2 Scarlet Hermit crabs
2 scooter blennys
1 -3 stripe damsel
1- Occ-CLown
2- Tomatoe CLowns
1- Baby Hippo Tang
2- Cromis damsels
1- Royal Gamma
and 1 yellow tail damsel.
We feed our fish 2 small meals a day. Flake in AM and Brine Shrimp at Night. We make sure that the fish finish. We do try and let a little go to bottom of tank for the blennys. Within 1/2 the food from bottom is gone.
Only other thing we have been using is Stress Zyme now ounce a week. We are starting to price out the lighing for Reef and anyother changes we will need. We will prob continue to buy the water from the store it's just cheaper.
Salt level has always been Perfect. I don't know what else I should tell you. O.........I almost forgot we have 1 live plant a Shaving Brush we were told it would help with Nitrates also. We also found a clam that will help with Nitrates but becuase of our PH we shouldn't get him wright now.
There ya go
Leona
birdy
Active Member
I just want to clarify a few things.
1. you only have 8lbs of LR?
2. Are you using RO water for top offs and water changes or tap?
3. How often do you rinse or replace the media in your cannister filter.
4. What type of salt and test kits are you using.
5. do you have any powerheads circulating water in your tank?
1. you only have 8lbs of LR?
2. Are you using RO water for top offs and water changes or tap?
3. How often do you rinse or replace the media in your cannister filter.
4. What type of salt and test kits are you using.
5. do you have any powerheads circulating water in your tank?
leona
Member
Originally posted by Birdy
I just want to clarify a few things.
1. you only have 8lbs of LR?
2. Are you using RO water for top offs and water changes or tap?
3. How often do you rinse or replace the media in your cannister filter.
4. What type of salt and test kits are you using.
5. do you have any powerheads circulating water in your tank?
Yes only 8lbs of LR we want to get more as soon as we can.
Since we have found out about RO/DI water we use it for top off and water changes. We have changed about 24 gallons of water in our 75 with RO/DI water from the store. We DO NOT use tap in the tank anymore.
The media has been rinsed only 1x with the 204.
The media has NOT been changed or rinsed in the 404. But we were thinking of doing that this weekend. We were told not to change our media for 3-4 months. Possiably replace the carbon if needed before that.
We are using Oceanic Sea Salt, and Saltwater master Test Kit also a friend gave us a Tetra Test Kit that we use to compare the two tests. Sometimes the colors are not what they say they should be.
As for powerheads can't say we do. I told you everything that we have in our tank.
Any thoughts?
Leona
bot587
Member
my suggestion is start curing some more live rock, maybe get some arganite live sand in there. This is where you will geta lot of your nitrogen fixing bacteria. Also, get a better cleanup crew. If the tank has cycled a good rule of them is 1 cleanup crew member per gallon. (Detritus feeders, algae eaters, etc.) The heat should be raised to anywhere from between 77-80 degrees (w/o lighting inc.). If your tank has not cycled i dont know what you are doing with all those fish in there!!!. If it has, awesome...
leona
Member
Originally posted by Bot587
my suggestion is start curing some more live rock, maybe get some arganite live sand in there. This is where you will geta lot of your nitrogen fixing bacteria. Also, get a better cleanup crew. If the tank has cycled a good rule of them is 1 cleanup crew member per gallon. (Detritus feeders, algae eaters, etc.) The heat should be raised to anywhere from between 77-80 degrees (w/o lighting inc.). If your tank has not cycled i dont know what you are doing with all those fish in there!!!. If it has, awesome...
Our Temp is steady from 78-80 ALWAYS with NO heater......We have never had to use a heater
As far as the clean- up crew. I don't understand why you need that many members of a clean up crew when you have nothing to clean up. NO ALGAE except for purple and brown. The very very very little green algae we had from our window was taken care of by the turbo snail. Now we have NONE (meaning alage)
As soon as we can we will change over to LS.
YES we cycled over 3 weeks ago actually almost 4 weeks ago.
Leona
birdy
Active Member
I think your main problem with nitrates is because of cc, not enough LR (MAJOR ISSUE), and your cannister filters, I really and not a fan of cannister filters unless you are trying to polish your water occasionally with carbon, they are good at breaking down nitrite to ammonia then to nitrate but then the nitrates are not broken down. Until you get more LR (or look at baserock for a less expensive option) and get rid of your cannisters you will continue to have nitrate issues. Also be sure you vaccume out your cc on a weekly basis or this will also be a huge addition to your nitrate problem. I don't really think having a cleanup crew is really an issue.
As far as your pH, the only thing I can think of is an O2 issue, you might try to get some powerheads and point one of them at the surface of the water to get some good 02 exchange, also if you have glass tops on your tank take them off.
As far as your pH, the only thing I can think of is an O2 issue, you might try to get some powerheads and point one of them at the surface of the water to get some good 02 exchange, also if you have glass tops on your tank take them off.
leona
Member
Originally posted by Birdy
I think your main problem with nitrates is because of cc, not enough LR (MAJOR ISSUE), and your cannister filters, I really and not a fan of cannister filters unless you are trying to polish your water occasionally with carbon, they are good at breaking down nitrite to ammonia then to nitrate but then the nitrates are not broken down. Until you get more LR (or look at baserock for a less expensive option) and get rid of your cannisters you will continue to have nitrate issues. Also be sure you vaccume out your cc on a weekly basis or this will also be a huge addition to your nitrate problem. I don't really think having a cleanup crew is really an issue.
As far as your pH, the only thing I can think of is an O2 issue, you might try to get some powerheads and point one of them at the surface of the water to get some good 02 exchange, also if you have glass tops on your tank take them off.
We will have to look into the LS. I was looking online at my LFS what should I look for?
Leona
birdy
Active Member
Actually where you live you might be able to find sand at your local Home Depot, they sell aragonite sand called Tropical Play Sand, it is white and it will say either, yard right, old castle or southdown on the sand somewhere, It is the expensive stuff the LFS tries to sell you only it is like $5 for a 50lb bag instead of $30. Go with that for sure, then spend your money on LR, this will seed the dry sand and make it live. Lots of money saved there, to save even more money, go with some baserock and then LR to seed it.
leona
Member
Funny you should mention that someone else mentioned about the sand and I was just looking online at home depot to see if I could find it. They had play sand but I don't know if it's Tropical Sand or not. My husband and I were just talking about it and we said if we could buy 1-2 bags of the play sand we could buy 1 bag of live sand. Mix it? Plus get some more base rock it's only 1.99 lb at LFS and more LR also that shouldn't cost to much. Is that a good idea? Still need help about LS though
Leona
Leona
birdy
Active Member
Put the dry sand down first then you put the LS on top. Base rock with LR is a good idea. Get as much LR as you can afford though. But even a tank full of baserock is better than a tank with no rock at all, try to pick light weight pieces with lots of holes in them, as porus as possible that goes for baserock and LR.
leona
Member
can't find play sand online. But I just read that they stopped carring the tropical play sand at the home depo's. At our lfs there is this "Marine Sand White" Beautiful natural sand for your marine aquarium! This soft white sand will help maintain the pH in your marine aquarium, while providing soft substrate for fish such as gobies, blennies, and other sand sifters.
That is pretty cheap. Will this work instead of play sand?
Leona
That is pretty cheap. Will this work instead of play sand?
Leona
birdy
Active Member
I am sure that it is fine, find out if it is aragonite (best thing to use but not absolutely necessary). Just get very fine grain sand, like sugar.
You would have to go to the home depot and look in the lawn and Garden section and look personally, the employee's have no idea what you are talking about if you ask. Not all home depot's carry it, but some do, it is certainly worth the trip to check it out. I have to pay $30 for a 30lb bag of aragonite here in the Midwest.
You would have to go to the home depot and look in the lawn and Garden section and look personally, the employee's have no idea what you are talking about if you ask. Not all home depot's carry it, but some do, it is certainly worth the trip to check it out. I have to pay $30 for a 30lb bag of aragonite here in the Midwest.
leona
Member
aragamax sand =
Aragamax reef sand is tiny and soft, the optimum sand substrate for soft-bellied sharks or sting rays. Also a great substrate for sand sifting organisms like gobies and jawfish. This sugar-sized oolitic substrate also contains many essential ocean nutrients for a healthy aquarium.
?
Leona
Aragamax reef sand is tiny and soft, the optimum sand substrate for soft-bellied sharks or sting rays. Also a great substrate for sand sifting organisms like gobies and jawfish. This sugar-sized oolitic substrate also contains many essential ocean nutrients for a healthy aquarium.
?
Leona
leona
Member
Aragalive Reef Sand - Fiji Pink 20 lbs.(Carib Sea
Fiji Pink, Arag-Alive Reef Sand is a premium grade aragonite that buffers to the highest ph (8.2+) and delivers more calcium, carbonate and trace elements than any other substrate. The sand never needs replacement. It is ideal for saltwater, African Cichlids and other freshwater fish that need a very high Ph (8.2+).
comes in 20 lb bags
So like 1 bag of this and some of the marine sand?
How much of the Marine sand?
Is it still 1lb to 1 gallon?
Leona
Fiji Pink, Arag-Alive Reef Sand is a premium grade aragonite that buffers to the highest ph (8.2+) and delivers more calcium, carbonate and trace elements than any other substrate. The sand never needs replacement. It is ideal for saltwater, African Cichlids and other freshwater fish that need a very high Ph (8.2+).
comes in 20 lb bags
So like 1 bag of this and some of the marine sand?
How much of the Marine sand?
Is it still 1lb to 1 gallon?
Leona