Not another post about nitrates oh no!

[lionstorm]

**sigh** Trying to lower my nitrates, I switched my ugf with cc to a 4 1/2 inch DSB recently, I have bagged crush coral in the tank to seed bacteria and help prevent another cycle. I have 70 lbs of life rock, maybe more, tank was established about 6 months in my house before the move, before that it had been set up 7 years and we didn't rinse the crushed coral or anything or let it dry out during the move so the bacteria was still very much alive in it and the levels of the tank were very stable for a long time.
My guess at first was the crushed coral causing the nitrate problems, as well as algae blooms gallore etc. Now I'm thinking it is probably over feeding so my question is this: I have a 4" Cinnamon clownfish, a 4 stripe damsel, a yellow tailed blue damsel, and a yellow chromis/damsel (do they even make all yellow damsels?) and a 4 1/2" Porc Pufferfish. I feed once a day a very light sprinkle of flakes, half a cube of brine shrimp, a small bit of seaweed/cowheart/seaweed/garlic soaked mix, and then a small part of shrimp/squid/crab/lobster/octupus all frozen but thawed when fed.
Is this way too much food? How often should I feed and how much?
Any advice would be much appreciated. oh a side note, its hard to resist those big pufferfish eyes when he swims right in front of the tank and begs.

 

[bbuck_camelback]

It sounds like you are feeding a bit on the heavy side. Overfeeding is a easy way to boost nitrates and could eventually cause major problems. I usually feed twice a day once in the morning and once in the evening around 8:00.All the food you put in there that doesn`t get ate will boost the trates, feed less but twice a day.

 

[thomas712]

Not to heavy on the food, close but it doesn't sound to heavy. Now what type of filtration do you have again?
What are your nitrates at? and what type of algea problems are you having?
I know its hard to believe but sometimes the fish can live if you don't feed them for one day. You know some times what you give them in a day is more than some fish get in the wild.
Check your nitrates and phosphates and find out where they are at and post them for me.
Thomas

 

[beaslbob]

What exactly are your nitrAte levels? If the crushed Coral dried out during the move then it is highly probable that very little of the bacteria survived.
Regardless of the input water and filtration, macro algaes and marine plants will reduce your nitrate levels. They also help crowd out the "ugly" algeas buy consuming the same nutrients. I recommend you add (or add more) macros/marine plants to your system.

 

[reefnut]

Stirring up the cc when you removed it could have released some bad stuff causing a nitrate increase... Just a guess.
How long has the DSB been setup? They take a little time to start working so it should help a great deal after it becomes active.

 

[lionstorm]

oh great some people can't read (beaslbob). here we go:
beaslbob: "we didn't rinse the crushed coral or anything or let it dry out during the move" verbatim from my first post.
bbuck: all the food gets eaten though, it would be different if a lot of pieces kept floating around the tank but my fish get it all
Thomas: Have a Magnum 350 sump filter that we run with activated carbon and a hang on penguin double biowheels. Right now the nitrates read off the charts, but everyone is still alive. We do water changes of about 10-15 gallons once a week from the 75 gallon tank and that only lowers the trates down to 100 or less. Then after a week they turn dark red again. I don't have a phosphates test right now and the only algae I have a lot of now is hair algae, but even that is mostly isolated to the live rock.
ReefNut: the move was over 6 months ago and we didn't stir up the cc, we never even took it out of the tank, we left it in the bottom with enough water in it to keep it moist.
DSB has been set up for almost 3 weeks now. And know it still needs to mature, hopefully it will soon and help out with some of these problems.

 

[beaslbob]

lion: sorry my bad.

 

[beaslbob]

Lion:
I recently thought I had nitrAtes pegging the test. Turned out to be a too sensitive almost used up test kit. 20-40ppm was reading 160ppm+. Additionally, my macro culture tank was still reading 0.0 so I thought the kit was fine. Additionally, a recent algae bloom continued to clear up and all inhabitants appeared fine. If that is the case in your tank, you might have the LFS test your water while you use your kit on the same water at the same time.
Again, macro algaes/marine plants in your system will reduce whatever nitrates you have.

 

[nacl-man]

IMO: Cut back a bit on the feeding for a while and see if they lower.
What exactly are the readings?

 

[bbuck_camelback]

The biowheel you have on the penguin is probably adding to the nitrates. I had biowheels on my emperor for the first 8 weeks into my tank, when I removed them I noticed a sizeable decrease in my nitrate. They are kinda of a hassle to clean all the time, I had two wheels on mine and I removed one and then removed the other a week later.

 

[lionstorm]

the trouble with having my LFS test my trates is that we are both using the same kit and our colors always come up the same. Like I said I can't tell you exactly what they are at because they are off the charts.
I'm going to skip their feeding tomorrow and fight my pufferfish's dirty looks. I will do a water change and take down the bio-wheels and see.

 

[nacl-man]

Originally posted by LionStorm
Like I said I can't tell you exactly what they are at because they are off the charts.
opps.. sorry I didn't catch that! My fault... need to learn how to read.
The advice you have gotten so far is a great start. You prob will not see results right away, wait a few days and see if they start to go down. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.
Cheers!

 

[lionstorm]

Originally posted by NaCL-Man
Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

yeah you got that right! My pufferfish is still looking at me with those big eyes

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by LionStorm
the trouble with having my LFS test my trates is that we are both using the same kit and our colors always come up the same. Like I said I can't tell you exactly what they are at because they are off the charts.
I'm going to skip their feeding tomorrow and fight my pufferfish's dirty looks. I will do a water change and take down the bio-wheels and see.
Then it sounds like you have pegged the tests. In my case the was 160+ppm.
skipping one day's feeding will not reduce the nitrAtes much. I takes some time for the nitrAtes to fall. In my case i cut back from 2/day to 1/day. actually that was on my fresh also. It took about a week for both tanks to show improvement. The fresh cleared up. Both tanks showed algae disappearing off the glass and in the salt the rocks in about two weeks.
Again, adding plant life will reduce nitrAtes in about a week or less.