I need help!!! Nitrate problem!

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That is what confuses me so much. I do weekly water changes and so on so forth and never get nastiness like what you have. It is clean fairly clear water. I have a deep sand bed with almost 35-40 pounds of live sand. I am going to go buy a 10-15 gallon tank next week and make a sump if I don't hear back on this pending transaction. How will I do my skimmer in sump with such a small one? I am thinking that it will be where the overflow initially enters the sump, correct? Or actually I guess that I could do it in the refugium section of the sump. Let me know what you guys think.
 
Maybe we can swap some Rainblock for it
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LOL! Mike:p


That is what confuses me so much. I do weekly water changes and so on so forth and never get nastiness like what you have. It is clean fairly clear water. I have a deep sand bed with almost 35-40 pounds of live sand. I am going to go buy a 10-15 gallon tank next week and make a sump if I don't hear back on this pending transaction. How will I do my skimmer in sump with such a small one? I am thinking that it will be where the overflow initially enters the sump, correct? Or actually I guess that I could do it in the refugium section of the sump. Let me know what you guys think.
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When you do your water changes, how do you actually go about removing the water from the tank? Do you just stick the siphoning tube in the water column and just suck up the water? If so, then all you would get is crystal clear water. Do you ever blast your rocks?? Like get a powerhead and blow it off or get a turkey baster and blow it off...If not, give it a try and watch what happens if you don't have adequet/sufficient flow. :shock: (LOL). Alot of your waste/detritus settles on your rocks and also, liverock sheds which is why people always urge you to have proper flow in your tank, if not, turkey baste your rocks regularily. You'd be amazed at what comes off if you don't do it :eek: If you don't, then before doing a water change, turn off all of your pumps, and blast your rocks a bit. Your water will be real messy and then you can just suck it up out of the water column when doing your water change. Another technique which I use to use before getting crazy flow in my tanks was do just what I suggested, but instead of removing the water, turn on my H.O.T Magnum canister filter with a polishing cartridge in it and let it run in the tank for about 30 mins to an hour. The micron cartridge would pick up anything floating around in the tank. As for your sandbed, where it is a dsb, you don't want to disturb the lower layers so you can gently siphon off of the top layer if you like to pick up any waste settling on it. I was never a big dsb fan so don't know really much about their care so maybe someone else will chime in. I do believe you need to have the right sand sifting critters though etc for it to function properly. :)

Now for your sump, you will probably want the skimmer in the input section of your sump to catch all the nasty water as it enters the sump. A 10 gal "may" be kind of small for the mere fact of having to put in the bubble traps and have it function properly so you may have to sketch things out first to make sure everything can fit (ie skimmer in first chamber, bubble trap which is usually 3 baffles and then enough space for a return pump). Here is a pciture of a small sump I had under my 38gal cube to give you an idea how I got it all to fit. It really wasn't a big sump at all, but was planned out properly and worked perfectly. I even had enough room in the sump for any backflow when the pumps were turned off.:)


 
I sift through the sand and take the rocks out of the tank and dip them in the water to clear debris.
 
boosted306 said:
I sift through the sand and take the rocks out of the tank and dip them in the water to clear debris.
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wow, perhaps that is a bit excessive of disruption. Think ocaean reef with everything growing in it's place followed by some crashing waves and then back to normal. The rock broken free and rolling in the sand on the bottom has very little growth. The stuff out of the water has even less.

Less is better for disruption as long as the irreducible minimum of no dead zones having been met.

.
 
I sift through the sand and take the rocks out of the tank and dip them in the water to clear debris.
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I kinda agree with Mike... I wouldn't take the rocks out of the tank and dip them in water. You don't want to keep exposing your rocks to air. Also, what type of water do you dip it in? A salt mix or just plain ro/di water? Let us know. A far better method in any event to get detritus etc off of the rocks is to either put a powerhead to them in the tank or use a turkey baster. When you get your sump up and running, you can always put a filter sock on the input pipe coming into the sump after blowing off your rocks and just let it catch everything passing through the sump. :)
 
My 2cents for what it is worth. I believe its the Canister Filter. Myself and another reefer I spoke to had similar problems. We discussed this at a LFS once and our problems stemmed from the canisters.

We eliminated our canisters and had the same results... Lower nitrate readings...while staying on the same maintenance schedules. This wasn't very scientific or anything. It's just funny how we both had nitrate problems even with larger than 10% water changes weekly...but once Canister was gone... Nitrates were down and by second water changes it was way down.

Something to consider doing like Mouse.... try taking that canister out of the equation and just do regular maintenance and see if it impacts it.
 
Take all the pads out of the canister filter.... Replace with crushed rock, rubble or more ceramic beads. Maybe water change every two weeks. dont over feed..
 
vinny2261 said:
Take all the pads out of the canister filter.... Replace with crushed rock, rubble or more ceramic beads. Maybe water change every two weeks. dont over feed..
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The type media isn't the problem, it is that any filter media will collect the detritus and thru bacterial decomposition, cycle it through into the final products which are all nitrates.

In lieu of breaking them down in the water, the idea is to remove the organic solids through skimming, plus removal of nitrates through water changes or refugium pruning.
 
Herefishyfishy said:
The type media isn't the problem, it is that any filter media will collect the detritus and thru bacterial decomposition, cycle it through into the final products which are all nitrates.

In lieu of breaking them down in the water, the idea is to remove the organic solids through skimming, plus removal of nitrates through water changes or refugium pruning.
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Yah =\ ...its sad some of these LFS stores will tell you its fine to use these canisters in SW...but in reality its not a good idea at all.

Its exactly what HFF said... when you think about it it really does make a lot of common sense to. The crap you want pulled out by skimmer is being stuck in the canister and breaking down... so there is no chance for the skimmer to pull those nasties out if its not in the water column before it becomes the nitrates we wish would go away ..../slaps nitrate in the face :badgrin:

I think for Reef tanks specifically its best to just say no to Canisters..
Stick to Live rock, Skimmers, And Fuges for your filtering...
 
Yes, there is some trappage of the gunk in the media, you still have to clean it every once in a while. I agree that a canister filter should not be used a biological support for the tank, but for flow it does just fine. But almost no matter what you have you have to clean and maintain it. :)
 
Well her is an UPDATE:

I cleaned the tank very well. I cleaned the rocks of any and all debris and sifted through the sand very well. Today I have 0 nitrates, period. I know that it is soon to test but I did.

Here is a question for some of you reefers. I have read that a canister is fantastic in a since that you fill the filter with live rock and a live sand bag. Let solely biological filtration do its thing. Has anyone done this? I may experiment with this once i have my sump and surface skimmer.
 
I have read that a canister is fantastic in a since that you fill the filter with live rock and a live sand bag. Let solely biological filtration do its thing. Has anyone done this? I may experiment with this once i have my sump and surface skimmer.
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Not really :oops: It will provide you with some biological filtration (aerobic) as aerobic bacteria will grow on the liverock rubble and sand, but nothing really to talk about. I mean if you look at the physical size of a canister filter, it can't really hold much. Some people have single pieces of liverock in their tank bigger than canister filters themselves! The problem with liverock rubble is there really isn't any place for anaerobic bacteria to grow and that's what you are concerned about when trying to work off/get rid of nitrates. Same for the sand in a canister filter. In order for there to be anaerobic zones for the necessary anaerobic bacteria to perform dentrification, the sand has to be deep enough for there to be areas void of oxygen which usually occurs I think around 5 or 6 inches deep or so (un-disturbed) which I don't think you'd get out of a canister filter. Basically all you'll have is increased surface area for aerobic bacteria to grow, but nothing major to talk about. So what I'm trying to get at is the little biological filtration you will get from a canister filter really isn't worth the trouble. The live rock in your tank alone (and sand if you choose to use any) should be more than able to support your system on it's own. The aerobic bacteria that will colonize the surface of your liverock etc will break down ammonia produced by waste into nitrite in a short time and then into nitrate soon after and then the anaerobic bacteria within your live rock will perform denitrification for you and convert that nitrate into nitrogen gas then out of your system. No need to really toss liverock rubble and sand in a canister filter for the little it offers. Just my opinion though :)
 
LOL! No problem...:)

One thing to keep in mind with this hobby though is what works for one person may not work for another so try as best you can to research all you can and do what you feel works best for you. Yes, there are some things out there that are just plain "No No's" like using regular tap water that contains over 100 ppm of nitrates in it (that was me when I was a newb :p ) but apart from that, there are many ways of going about things in this hobby. Weigh out your options and do what you feel most comfortable with. :)
 
I am slowly starting to realize that. Opinions differ in this hobby so much it is unreal. All opinions are appreciated but some seem so far left. Not really with this forum as much as others. I used SWF.com and RC.com a lot in previous years before I found this one. Some of the advice that I received was unreal, "If you don't have a $1,000.00 skimmer your doing something wrong." I just want to figure out what is the most responsible and sensible way to keep saltwater fish and inverts.
 
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