Question about emperor filters

[jsb]

I have a 37gal with a aqua c skimmer, and an 280 emperor with a bio wheel. My question is this - Should I take the bio wheel out, and the carbons, and just let it circulate the water. I've been fighting an algea problem for some time now, and recently someone told me the bio wheel and carbons are both a Nitrate factory. I'll gone from feeding every day to every other, some one told me the Alk being low wasn't helping the cause. I now have my Alk around 10, my Cal around 350, Ph is 8.3. Nitrites, and Amonia are both good, but those dang Nitrates don't go away. I was thinking about taking the carbons, out, and the bio wheel off, during my water change this weekend. Does that sound like the right thing to do. Thanks - JSB
BTW here's a pick as of a few days ago. The Algea is better, but not perfect yet.

 

[cholland]

I recently posted a similiar question about taking out the biowheel and such. And most of the opinons were if I had enough LR and a good skimmer then do it. The LR would replace your biowheel and the skimmer would clean up the rest.
So that's what I did. And I have seen an improvement. If I were you I would try it and then test your water. And depending on the results make a permanent decision.
HTH

 

[jsb]

Cool. I've got 40 to 50 lbs, and I think the Aqua C is one of the best skimmers around, so what the h3ll I'll try it. Did you see improvemant over a week or so, or didn't it take longer. I'm more of a weekly changer than a monthly or bi-weekly. So hopefully I'll see some pretty quick improvements.
Thanks for the response.
JSB

 

[daniel411]

Looks like you have plenty of live rock to slowly try switching to natural filtration depending on how heavy your bio-load is.
Do you have any other forms of water circulation, like power heads?
How often are you doing water changes?
You might want to look up the phosphate reactor threads that have been around for the past few months. I've only been useing one for about a month now, but have deffinately seen a reduction in algae.

 

[jsb]

I don't think my bio-load is bad. I've got a CB, a Scooter, a Clown, and a Cardinal. In addtion to that I has a Red Sea Star, 4 Scarlet hermits, 2 Emerald, and 2 Turbos. I had two more, but two of my older turbos died

They has grown so big too.
I've been changing 4 gallons weekly, but lately I've been lazy and have been changing 5 bi-weekly, and topping off in between.
I have a Maxi-Jet 1200, on my skimmer, a Maxi-Jet 900, and a ZooMed 214 (junk in my opinion) I think I'm going to pic up another Maxi-Jet 900 soon. I'd like to hook them all up to a wave maker, but that's another topic.
I probably should add more sand. I've got a 3 inch sand bed, and I should probably make it 4 but that's later as well. My tank is a weird size. It must have been a custom tank. I was thinking it was Oceanic because it's got thick glass, but I couldn't find the size on their site. It's 30wx17dx17.5t I got it from a guy who had built it into a wall so I don't know. I could find a stand to fit it so I built on myself. Anyway...

 

[petem]

Is your algae, the dark, slimy type? on the sand bed, and LR? I have the same problem. It comes and goes. I dont have enough LR to take over the filtering though. I only have one powerhead Maxi-jet 900 and a red sea skimmer which does a great job I think. Let us know what happens, if you try it.

 

[jsb]

Okay, it's done. I cleaned out the emperor, and put it back in without the bio wheel, or the carbons. I'll post updates as I see changes.

 

[badkharma]

I did that on my non-show tank with the emp. 400. I took off the bio-wheels - but I still maintain the carbon/filter floss because the as long as you change it when it needs it, you're fine, no nitrate factory. The filter floss provides mechanical filtration.

 

[jsb]

See that's what I was thinking. How often do you change the carbons? Once a month or sooner. Also I was talking to this guy who tried putting his smaller left over peices of LR in the Emperor instead of carbons. He hasn't had it in there long enough to see any results though.
After 24 hours not much change...

 

[birdy]

You are going to have to do more than just take out your filters to get rid of the algae, because once you have algae it keeps using up the nutrients when some of it dies it releases them and new algae grows, you need to manually remove the algae by hand this will remove nutrients from the water. Weekly water changes will also help.
Running carbon in your emporer is a good idea, you just need to rinse the cartridge every week in saltwater during your water change.

 

[jsb]

Update on this method...
So far with weekly water changes my algea has pretty much disappeared on the sand bed. There is a small amount still growing on some of my rock. I think it's working. As of Sunday my levels were looking good. My Cal. has dropped a bit but I think that's due to my Alk dosing. I just picked up some algra milk (sp) and half dosed that three times now. Over all, I'm pretty happy with the water so far. The skimmer seems to be doing the job.