new tank nitrates....

[Skeptic9962]

for some reason i cant seem to get the nitrates on my new tank to go down under 10 ive been doing water changes but probably not enough once a week 5-10gal. on a 32gal tank. main thing i was thinking is the sand needs to get established and then it should be fine has quite a bit of air pockets in it. would this cause it? and how long do nitrates usually stay around first couple months? ive been also wondering if i shouldnt have put a sandbed in my refuge...i had extra sand from the display so i put about a 3" sandbed or so in the fuge with some cheato. could that be causing it also?

i feed once a day and i lightened up alot on feeding.

 

[mmkeeper]

Have tested your water that you use for water changes to see if you have any nitrates there?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Running a protein skimmer or a refugium?

 

[Skeptic9962]

yeah ive tested makeup water and its clean...i use a RODI unit that is brand new from TFG. I actually run both a tunze 9010 and a small refuge...

 

[Reeferdude]

You first had substrate bottom then went to bare right? Was there a nitrate issue before you removed the substrate?

 

[Skeptic9962]

no i still have substrate about a 2" sand bed in main display....

 

[Krish]

When you do your water changes, do you vaccum the substrate? Shallow sandbeds need to be cleaned regularily...Even in your sump. 3 inches may not be deep enough in your sump to be considered a deep sand bed so there may not be any anerobic zones in there for the denitrifying bacteria to grow and perform it's duty of denitrification (the process where nitrates are converted into nitrogen gas). With that being said, if you're not vaccuming the substrate (ssb) then you need to as a lot of waste gets trapped in there which begins to break down and degrade water quality. Lets us know though on the vaccuming

 

[Skeptic9962]

i was under the impression that with a sandbed of 2"+ you shouldnt have to stir it up much....so should i be getting all the junk out of the sand when i do water changes? i do a 5-10gal. change every friday. my display sandbed is 2" and my fuge sandbed is 3"

 

[Reefergeorge]

In my 90 I had nitrates at 10 for the first year it was set up. Now without changing anything they are stable at zero.

 

[NC2WA]

for some reason i cant seem to get the nitrates on my new tank to go down under 10

What is the current nitrate level?

Is this a FO system or a reef? I would think in a FO system, you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Skeptic9962]

current lvl is 10 nitrate and no it is a clams, sps and rare zoes tank...that is why im worried about this lvl

 

[NC2WA]

I thought clams thrive on nitrates in the tank???

I am not into SPS or Zoo so I cannot comment on this.