not sure what's going on with water parm

[machine646]

I have a 20g long(glass) with 2 500ghp pds,fluval c5 hob filter,100w heater,37 lbs of lr,20lbs of sand,2x24w t5s,no skimmer yet saving my money for a nice one i figured theres no point in buying a crappy one, The tank is 3mo old,I had a nitrate problem.I was told to remove the sponge first then wait a bit then remove the biomedia(i must have moved too fast like a idiot) ans my water perm and horrible,ammonia.50,nitrite 2.0,nitrate 160+.before i did anything the nitrate was the only problem its been close to 3 weeks and the water is getting no better. I tryed sea chem stability it did nothing,Im getting really erked that none of the spikes have gone down,i did a 50% wc a few days ago to see if it would help since i have a clown,hermits,snails i dont want to loose,The weird thing is they seem to be doing fine but i know over time its gonna kill them,its not the money i spent im worried about,i dont wanna have my critters and fish tortured,if theres any ideas please gimmie a hand, Thanks

 

[ghofmann]

When you took out the bio media from the filter you took out a substantial amount of the tanks ability to process waste so the tank is going to cycle again until the rock can produce enough bacteria to keep up with the bio load.

If your worried about your critters do you have a freind with a tank or an LFS nearby that can hold onto them for you?

Keep up with the water changes and that should help get the nasties out. You might also try to find some of the bottled bacteria to help increase your bacteria levels. Never tried it myself but i have heard it helps.

 

[Krish]

Maybe have your lfs retest your water for you to see if it is not bad test kits you have especially going on the fact that you have these levels and nothing seems bothered by it (ie fish and inverts). Might just be false readings you are getting. Removing the bio-media and sponge wouldn't cause your nitrate levels to go up because they both contain only aerobic bacteria so nitrates are coming from somewhere if infact your test results are correct. With you being 3 weeks in now after removing the sponge and bio-media on a 3 month old tank seems kinda strange that things haven't stabilized yet which leads me back to either bad test kits/false readings or possibly bad water source. Are you using RO/DI water? Let us know...A lot of tap water contains all of these things you are trying to avoid so with each water change instead of helping the situation, you are just adding to the problem. Let us know.

 

[machine646]

I'm using ro water also rodi water most of the time,I bought a api saltwater and reef test kit I'm getting the same results with both kits,I'm gonna go to the lfs I deal with Saturday when I'm off work,also see if they have the skimmer I want,I can only get there once a month cuz its a hr away,this water thing has me stumped,also there's green alge and the redishbrown on the sand is fading.is 37 lbs of lr too much for a 20 long,also to anwser you question ghoffman I don't have any friend in the hobby out here ,i wish I did,I fully rely on reading and your guys.

 

[jrgilles]

Kind of a weird problem. Sounds like you have verified the accuracy of the readings if you are using two kits.

Are you checking your RO/DI water with a TDS meter? If not, maybe test it for ammonia/nitrates/nitrites to make sure it is as it should be?

Also, did you test your tank right after your big water change? When I mix the salt, I usually let it mix and outgas for 24 hours, as I hear that there is some ammonia present when the salt dissolves (although I wouldn't think it was all that much...)

 

[machine646]

I'm not sure what a tds test is ,when I do a wc I let it mix for two days prior to the wc I use two powerheads and heater,I'm gonna check my water that's mixing tonite when I'm out of work,this really has me stumped,I'm also trying to find a way to clean my sand better ,its very fine sand,the thing that has me so confused is my clown and cum seem fine eating normal,and my hermits an snails seem very active,could alge dieing cause this ,it honestly driving me nuts

 

[jrgilles]

TDS is Total Dissolved Solids. An inexpensive meter that most people have attached to their RO/DI filters to show that the filters are working properly (and to let them know when they need to replace filter media.)

 

[machine646]

I prob never heard of it because I don't have a rodi unit lol I gotta buy the water by the gallon

 

[Krish]

I'm not sure what a tds test is ,when I do a wc I let it mix for two days prior to the wc I use two powerheads and heater,I'm gonna check my water that's mixing tonite when I'm out of work,this really has me stumped,I'm also trying to find a way to clean my sand better ,its very fine sand,the thing that has me so confused is my clown and cum seem fine eating normal,and my hermits an snails seem very active,could alge dieing cause this ,it honestly driving me nuts

Algae dieing will release nutrients back into the water so if you have algae dieing then your levels will shoot up. This is why it is suggested to manually remove algae every so often so as to export the bound up nutrients out of your tank. I promoted algae to grow in my sump seeing it was growing at the time due to some excess nitrate and phosphate levels anyways and every week religiously, I removed the algae to remove these nasties out of my system. As it grew back, I continued the process so you can't just let it sit and die off in there. At some point, you will need to manually remove it. It will probably grow back, but let it and remove it again. This will help lower your nitrate levels. There are a few things here that has me stumped though. One is, you have nitrate levels at 160 ppm. Part of nitrate production has to do with nitrite conversion so some of these nitrates are a result of aerobic bacteria converting nitrite into nitrate (so you do have aerobic bacteria in there), but why the high accumilation? Could you possibly be over feeding the tank? Un-eaten rotting food will increase nitrate levels. Also, how about flow? Are you experiencing any deadspots in your tank where detritus/waste accumilates? Maybe try taking a turkey baster or a powerhead in your hand and blow your rocks and see what comes off. If you see a big cloud in there then either flow needs to be addressed as detritus is accumilating or you need to turkey baste your rocks regularily. Then there is tank husbandry. How often do you do water changes/perform tank maintenance? When you do do it, do you vacuum your substrate? If so, how? Sand in itself can be a bit tricky. A shallow sand bed requires vacuuming throughout to remove any waste/detritus that settles in it where as a deep sand bed requires a different approach. Only the top portion of the sand bed which is aerobic should be vacuumed. The lower anaerobic levels should never be touched or stirred up. If so, you release some bad stuff back into your tank. One thing I keep coming back to though is that this tank is 3 months old which means your liverock and sandbed should have had a good enough supply of aerobic bacteria in it...Enough I'd say to be able to rebound in less than 3 weeks after removing a sponge and some bio-media (which was not done all at once) to the point where you aren't reading any traces of detectable ammonia or nitrites. Aerobic bacteria works quickly and populates a tank pretty quickly and you aren't starting from scratch here so this is the part I don't understand. At this point you shouldn't be reading any ammonia or nitrite IMO. I guess a bit more info on your maintenance routines we'd need to know as well as some test results on your make-up water. This may very well be part of the problem. Ro water usually isn't good enough in this hobby which is why it is always suggested to use ro/di water.

Bummer you are experiencing this. :doubt:. I was in the same boat. I jumped right into the hobby with a wet/dry system, minimal flow to where I had tons of deadspots in the tank where detritus and waste collected, used tap water high in all of the crap we want to avoid in our tanks to where I took down the tank and gave up on the hobby for about a year. I came back a year later though, started fresh with a better understanding of how things worked and what needed to be done, and it ended in success. You will have hiccups every so often (even the most experienced reefers do) but it's all a part of the hobby. Best piece of advice is to learn all you can about the hobby before jumping in. I think a skimmer will do wonders for you and quite honestly, if I were in your shoes, I'd probably take a step back for a sec, give up the livestock and kinda start from square one and allow the tank to balance out again properly as you tweak whatever issues you are having until things are stable and then from there, re-introduce your livestock back in. I had to do it un-fortunately, but was glad I did as trying to fix the mess I had there would have taken a much longer time.

Anyways, let us know a bit more about your maintenance routines as well as the test results on your water.

 

[machine646]

I think you may have nail it,there is quite of dead alge in my tank,that may be causeing the water parms to suck,im gonna clean it up and do a water change tonite,what I do everyweek is change the water 25percent scrape the walls and clean or replace the carbon.am i doing something wrong,I've cut back my lights to 4-5 hours a day and turn the sand a bit,when I use a turkey baster to clean the rock theres a ton of stuff that clouds up

 

[Krish]

I think you may have nail it,there is quite of dead alge in my tank,that may be causeing the water parms to suck,im gonna clean it up and do a water change tonite,what I do everyweek is change the water 25percent scrape the walls and clean or replace the carbon.am i doing something wrong,I've cut back my lights to 4-5 hours a day and turn the sand a bit,when I use a turkey baster to clean the rock theres a ton of stuff that clouds up

Yea, when you don't have enough flow to keep your rocks clean, then you have to "turkey baste" them regularily. Regularily like I'd do it atleast every two days, but you have to find a way to remove what comes off. If you just blow it and allow it to settle back in the tank, then it did you no real good but relocate it. You have to remember, the waste/detritus that you see settling on the rocks, is the same stuff you see a filter sock, sponge etc pick up. The problem is, if it stays in the tank, then it is not doing you any good. It will work against you just like a clogged sponge full of waste sitting in a tank will. Remove it from the tank and you remove the waste from the system. This was the reason I went with bare bottom tanks. I had a 90 gal that I went bare botttom in first, a 75gal, a 38 gal and a 24 gal all bare bottom just so that I could have enough flow in there to keep the rocks clean and prevent a sand storm plus I didn't want to fight with keeping a sand bed clean as well. The idea is to keep the waste/detritus in the water column to either be filtered out by a skimmer, sponge, filter sock etc (granted you keep them clean) or used up by corals that use it for food. After going bare bottom and pumping up the flow, turkey basting my rocks did nothing. Bare bottom is a good route, but is something that has its cons as well. For one, it doesn't look as natural as a tank with sand does and also, you will be limited on critters and fish you can keep that require sand. I'll post some pics below for you to show you some of my old bare bottom tanks, but on to the algae yea, you want to remove what you can. This is one way how a refugium works. You put an algae in there that will use up available nutrients (out of sight) and weekly you trim it back as it grows exporting these nutrients. A 25% water change a week isn't bad at all especially on a tank that isn't running a skimmer. You want to dilute things as best you can.

Anyways still get us those results from your make-up water. This will give us a better idea of what is going on.

As for the pics, here's my 75gal bare bottom FOWLR tank (I had a white pvc board bottom to make it look like sand ) with a little over 5,000 gph of flow






And here's the 38 gal (bare bottom with white floor again) with about 4,000 gph of flow. First shot is of the flow out of the top outputs and then I had the same down low as well. Including the return, there were 9 nozzles total LOL!! This was a reef setup.

 

[jrgilles]

Since you don't have any corals, you could cut your light cycle way down, or even give it a couple days of darkness to help get rid of the algae. You will want to physically remove whatever you can though before you do it. That may kill off what is left though so it doesn't regrow..