Man made rock or lava rock..

[MGDMIRAGE]

Can Lava style rock leach nitrates into a system?

 

[returnofsid]

Lava rock usually contains lots of trace metals from the earth. Such metals can leach out of the rock, causing lots of possible problems.

If you can find a good source of Tufa stone, it's ancient "live rock" and corals, but found on land, where oceans used to be. It's a very good, porous rock, and can be used as live rock. The problem is, it's kind of tough to find in our parts.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Just curious cause i've been having trate issues in my tank and only thing i could figure out was that it might be the rocks. I do large scale water changes but trates keep returning. I have lots of cheato, 2 small fish(yellow tail damsel, yellow watchmen goby) 2 shrimp 1 emerald crab and the cleanup crew. I feed sparingly once a day to once every other day. I stay away from flake foods as to not cause a phosphate spike. Today i removed the lava/tufa rocks, not sure if that was the problem but i didn't know what else i could do. I'm also running chemipure elite. I had recently added a pom pom crab but the next day he was dead so now i'm on a rampage. Now that i've removed the tufa rock i'm expecting a small recycle as it was a good chunk of my live rock. I will monitor the parameters over the next few days to see if there is much change. I've also prepared 5 gals of IO water incase.

 

[Sascha D]

one thing about lava rock is that is absorbs chemicals. If you're using lava rock that has ever been inside a tank that has been treated for anything, then it can harm your system.

 

[returnofsid]

Are you using RO/DI water? Test the fresh mixed saltwater, before adding it to you tank. Also test your source water, be it tap or RO/DI. Nitrates may be coming from there.

Use a turkey baster, or powerhead to blow as much detritus off the live rock as you can, prior or during a water change. How deep is your sand bed and is it sugar sized sand or crushed coral? Crushed coral can become a nitrate trap, in short order.

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

Are you using RO/DI water? Test the fresh mixed saltwater, before adding it to you tank. Also test your source water, be it tap or RO/DI. Nitrates may be coming from there.

Use a turkey baster, or powerhead to blow as much detritus off the live rock as you can, prior or during a water change. How deep is your sand bed and is it sugar sized sand or crushed coral? Crushed coral can become a nitrate trap, in short order.

Using store bought purified water, and tested it and nothing registered. I've been doing the turkey baster thing prior to water changes. The sand is sugar sized probably about 1 1/2" - 2" aragonite. Pretty perplexed at the moment. I even turn my chemipure cartridge 180 degrees every other day as to not let any detritus settle on it.

Thanks for the help,
Shawn

 

[MGDMIRAGE]

I should also mention that i had both of these fish and the crab and most of the cleanup crew in my 5.5 gallon for about 2 months and the nitrates were only 5ppm average in that tank. It however had crushed coral substrate but no tufa rock. That is what piqued my suspicion over the rock. I obtained the rock from a local reefer that had it in his sump.