Removing Bio Balls- High Nitrates

[jrt0030]

Hello guys. I have a 150 gallon reef tank. I purchased a Reef Octopus 3000SS skimmer about two months ago. I have 5 fish, live rock, and coral. I also have a large cleaning crew. I have done everything I can including consistant water changes and can not lower my nitrates.......they stay anywhere from 40 to 60 PPM. My question is can I just remove the bio balls from my sump without causing a spike in my ammonia and nitrates?? Please HELP!! This is driving me crazy.

 

[jrt0030]

I forgot to mention that I have an R/O unit for my water as well. My tank is over 1 year old.

 

[geoj]

You can remove them and you can keep some prime on hand if you see a bump in the waste numbers. If the problem is not overfeeding overstocking then it would be letting the waste build up over time or the source water is not clean.

 

[jrt0030]

so do I need to add live rock to the sump or can my skimmer handle everything?

 

[jrt0030]

I wish I had never used them, but my LFS guy never said anything about the problems with them. I am sure the problem is where I have had them and never cleaned them. But, if I can get rid of them, I would love to.

 

[geoj]

Well I would say that we must have a balance. The food you feed must be remove in some way. Skimming, bio-filter, and uses of filter socks all can be part of a healthy system but, you can easily unbalance things by adding more fish then can be kept or feeding more then needed.
With as little info that I know about your tank I would be able to maintain the water quality with waste numbers in the undetectable ranges at all times. I may need to remove a fish that is a messy eater but your tank does not sound different form any other. So post up all your tanks info what you test how old are your test kits, what type of fish and any other thing you think of. When was the last time you tested the R/O water for chlorine. How and what do you do every week.

 

[jrt0030]

Fish: Hippo Tang, Powder Blue Tang, Percula, Royal Gramma, six line wrasse
Coral-Xenia, fruit loop pollyps, Anemone, Wellsophyllia Brain, Red Favite Closed Brain that is not doing well, Yellow Elegance that is not doing well, and some other types of zoas, blue waving hands, blue mushrooms, neon green mushrooms, metallic orange mushrooms
Everything is fine except the two that I specified.
Big cleaning crew
Pin Cushion Urchin
Tuxedo Urchin
I just tested the R/O water last week and also when I used tap water it tested 0 for Nitrates
PH-8.3/8.4
Calcium around 440
Temp is 82
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Phosphates were .25 which is why I bought the R/O unit.

 

[jrt0030]

I clean my filter or replace the filter in the drip tray every week
I do a 15 gallon water change at least twice a month
Purchased the reef octopus skimmer two months ago (Before that I had the HOB octopus)
Nitrates are always at least 40 up to 80
Also, I removed the Bio Balls last night.........do you think that was okay?

 

[geoj]

You can read zero nitrates and sill have lots of chlorine. Do you test for chlorine and do you use a dechlorinator? Is the test kits you are using compatible with the dechlorinator you use? Are your test kits expired?

 

[beaslbob]

to lower and maintain nitrates at unmeasureable levels you have to consume the nitrates being generated.
the best way to do that is with algaes such as macros in a refugium or an algae turf scrubber.
If you have removed bioballs a good thing to do is replace them with chaetomorphia algae and add a light.
my .02