Why are my nitrates still high

[Freezerburn]

besides overfeeding, and me being to lazy to read if someone suggested this or not, why don't you look into a remote Deep Sand Bed. Take a bucket and fill it with cheap sand have a pump push water into it and a hole were you want the water to exit back into the sump. I'm sure there are many unique ways to do this. I heard it does wonders for denitrification after the beneficial bacteria get going.

Edited March 16, 2008 by Freezerburn

[treesprite]

How can a person vacuum a tank with sand in it? Do you mean vacuum the sump, which makes more sense?

[magnetic1]

How can a person vacuum a tank with sand in it? Do you mean vacuum the sump, which makes more sense?

 

You use a siphon vacuum. When u put it near the sand, it sucks up lighter particles and the sand kind of stirs up a bit.

[jamesbuf]

You use a siphon vacuum. When u put it near the sand, it sucks up lighter particles and the sand kind of stirs up a bit.

 

If you have particles sitting on the sandbed like that, then you don't have nearly enough flow in your tank. You shouldn't have to vacuum the main tank like that.

[treesprite]

I complete agree Forrest. I really don't see how anyone has zero nitrates. Unless you have a really light fish load.

I would like to see how many people on internet forums are actually only saying zero because they don't want to look bad, given that at least 50 - 75% of people who give params report zero.

[Rascal]

I honestly don't understand how so many people are able to report zero nitrate given some of their systems and stocking.

 

Zero reported nitrates doesn't mean zero nitrates, just that whatever is there gets used up so quickly that test kits can't detect it.

 

I know my heavily stocked system produces a lot of nitrate - because if it didn't I wouldn't see so many air bubbles being released by my DSB (converting nitrate to Nitrogen gas) and my chaeto wouldn't grow so fast. But a test kit still shows 0.

 

Many others achieve the same or better #s using the bare-bottom approach. Either methodology, properly employed and combined with good source water + frequent water changes + good skimmer + not over-feeding + time for your tank to mature, can get you to 0 nitrate.