Now what?

[banner1]

My nitrates have always been high in my aquarium 40-80 been that way for a year yet my fish and inverts have always been in good health. It just got on my nerves to see my other water readings so good and nitrate so high so 2 weeks ago i went on a mission of sorts to lower my nitrates. The first thing i did was to remove the bio balls from my filter /skimmer then i went and bought a second skimmer i also purchased 50 more pounds of live rock to add to the 75 pounds i already had. I also did not have enough substrate in my tank and it was the wrong kind cc so instead of adding live sand i purchased regular marine sand rinsed it real good and added it to the tank. Then i did a 20 gallon water change. Then this morning i took my nitrate reading i have got to tell you i was jumping for joy to see that reading at 20

. Well now i guess i can get to my questions sorry it took so long lol. First ? how deep should your substrate be for a125 gallon and should i keep doing water changes every day until my nitrates are 0? Every body on this sight has been so helpful to me thanks a million.

 

[lexluethar]

Your subrate depth depends on what you want accomplished. If you want nitrafing bacteria to actually populate the sand bed and break down nitrates into gas, then you need about 4 inches. If you just want it for show then around 1 inch is fine. I don't know why, but people say stay away from anything inbetween, not really sure why.
I would do water changes until your nitrates are at 0. But realize that until you find the root cause of all this nitrate problem it will continue to be an issue. Too many fish, lack of filtration, etc. It seems like you are ontop of it though. In regards to your bioballs, they DO NOT cause nitrates, the crap that gets stuck in them and decay causes nitrates. So if you don't have any filter floss or proper filtration prior to water entering the bioball chamber then yes - food inside the bioballs will cause nitrates. My suggestion would be to clean the bioballs off, reintroduce them into the filter and make sure to have adequate filtration before water gets to them.

 

[scopus tang]

The other thing that you can do with your bioball chamber if you don't want to use bioballs is fill it with live rock. However, as Lex stated, if you don't have some type of prefilter system the same substances will accumulate in your live rock and potentally increase the nutrient levels in your tank. Just a thought.

 

[spanko]

Throw some Chaeto with a light over it in the bio ball chamber. Forget the live rock in there. (Go ahead with the tank rock though.)