Ray Keepers Question On Filtration Wet/Dry

[tainte97]

Any ray keepers out there, hope you can help. How do you all keep your nitrates in check. I have a 125 gallon with about 65lbs of live rock, 150 lbs 4" deep sand bed, biowheel 400, fluval 404, and a DIY wet/dry with 5 gallons of bioballs and a 20 gallon sump with a jebo 180 skimmer. I change out 15 gallons of water a week with new salt water and top off with ro/di water about a gallon ever other day. I cant get my nitrates below 20 and the usually are as high as 50ppm!! I have the ray and a porc puffer in the tank. I feed the ray and puffer twice a day, the eat silversides and sometimes the puffer eats krill (if I have it) I would say between the two about 15-20 silversides daily. I always make sure that there is no wasted food and I clean the stingray poop out every day,but cannnot seem to get them down. Can I get away with feeding the ray less, He is very healthy now, so Im not sure what to do. I thought when I set the tank up I over did the filtration, guess not!! Any suggestions would be great!!

 

[cartman101]

could it be that your ray keeps digging into the sand? Letting all the nitrates in the sand into the tank?

 

[tainte97]

im not sure, but the ray does not dig all the dip into the sand, only to cover himself. Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[jcrim]

I only feed mine once a day... this would help with your nitrates. Also, you may want to vary the diet a little more. Silversides are extremely messy. Alternate with silversides, krill, squid and shark formula. The other foods are a little cleaner.

 

[mitzel]

I agree try switching up the diet a bit and before you do a water change stir up the sand a bit to release some of the built up nitrates. then when you remove the water your also removing the nitrates. Another Idea is you might want to try running a refugium on the tank. The extra sand rock and plant life will help to remove nitrates .

 

[tainte97]

whats shark formula? Never heard of it. I will try to sawitch his diet and see of I cant get him to eat some of that other stuff. If I stir the sand how deep should I stir, i thought if you had a DSB you werent suppost to stir it?

 

[unleashed]

I pellet feed mine in the am mysis or squid pm feeding.when you change the water are you cleaning substrate?although sand is harder to clean it must be cleaned.get lots of sand sifters such as nas snails that may help reduce the waste and your ray may eat a few but they are easy to get so far mine doesnt touch my snails.how long has this tank been set up for.it may be time to clean bio balls.I use amonia removal pads in my wet dry I change this every week.you may also want to do 25% water changes weekly..this may help.15-20 silverslides per day is quit eccesive IMO.I use that many to feed 5 tanks in a day.how large is your ray?this could pos be your problem.

 

[tainte97]

My ray is not the big, i was told to feed him as much as he would eat and thats what ive been doing. I dont clean the sand other than lightly vacuuming the top layer becuase i was also told if the sand bed was deep the lower layers had toxin in them. Im going to tr and step up the water changes and see what happens. Does anyone know of a nitrate spongue or something that goes into the sump or a DIY nitrate reducer that can be made cheaply.

 

[unleashed]

thats why i was asking.yes they do make a nitrate sponge it goes in like a carbon only draw back to this method ifs when the effectiveness is done it may release more nitrates into your tank.try some sand sifters such as nas snail and sandsifting stars this may help reduce some waste in your sand bed.you could also add macro algae right to your tank this will help purifie .such as cheto or another type he wont bother it a bit

 

[tainte97]

The macro algae, does it require strong lighting? Can I put it in my sump, like in a small compartment or something?

 

[mitzel]

Originally Posted by tainte97
The macro algae, does it require strong lighting? Can I put it in my sump, like in a small compartment or something?

:notsure: A small lighted compartment with tank water flowing thru it with a light and some live plants designed to help reduce nitrates ? Why I've never herd of such an outragous thing . :notsure:

 

[unleashed]

Originally Posted by tainte97
The macro algae, does it require strong lighting? Can I put it in my sump, like in a small compartment or something?
yes you can but you will need some type of light source.an 18w florescent light even will do the trick.but i will tell you it thrives under pc lighting the best.