need help

[daharley]

I cant seem to get rid of nitrates.60 gallon tank FOWLR app 60 lbs of live rock. Marineland filter recently replaced 1 filter pad with LR pieces. Remora Pro skimmer. 1-2 inches of live sand bed. 2 horseshoe crabs 1 red crab, hermit crabs20 + snails app 15 4 turbo snails, small cowfish small hawkfish small maroon clown. Derasa clam 5-6 inches added to try to help nitrates. Using API saltwater test kits. Nitrites 0, Ammonia 0 Nitrates 40 +. Have tried large water changes, chemicals cannot seem to lower them. Also have UV light. Have lost 6 fish due to ich and want to lower nitrates for good before adding more. Any help would be appreciated.

[daharley]

Tank running since January

[treesprite]

Did you test your water change & top-off water for nitrate?

 

If those are zero, you might want to try a test to see if your rock is leeching liverock. Rinse some liverock (that can be easily removed hopefully) in NEW saltwater, put the liverock in a container with again NEW saltwater (not the stuff you used to rinse). Let the liverock sit in there, then test the water in a day or two, and if you don't see any nitrate, test again every few days until you either do, or until it's been a long enough time with zero that yo ae convinced the rock isn't leeching.

[daharley]

Yes I tested the top off water but will have to do live rock

[daharley]

what causes live rock to leech I have not heard of this before

[Origami]

Your sand bed, at "1-2 inches" may be factoring into this. The depth that you're using is neither in the shallow nor deep sand bed category. You're actually in the "no man's land" of 1 to 3 or 4 inches where your sand bed is purely aerobic and still a significant part of your biological filtration. Thus, the bacteria that have colonized the sand bed are mostly operating in an aerobic mode and are converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. Unfortunately, without a deeper sand bed, the nitrates are leeched into the water column, and are left to the anaerobic areas of the live rock to contend with.

 

You may wish to reduce your sand bed depth to below 1 inch over the course of a couple of weeks.

 

Overfeeding is often part of the nitrate problem, too. I don't know how much you feed, but I'm wondering if that cowfish is a big producer of waste.

 

Large water changes should immediately reduce your nitrates by an amount proportionate to the water change. That is, a 25% water change should result in a 25% reduction in nitrates. If you're not seeing that, I'd suspect either a test kit error or nitrates in your source water.

 

40 ppm on a FOWLR is probably tolerable for most fish. It would be high for a reef with corals, but should be tolerable for the fish. Inverts typically suffer earlier from high nitrates. I'm not sure how ich would factor into this, really. Nitrates are a stressor, and that's never good, but a nitrate level of 40 ppm doesn't typically cause the kind of carnage you've described.

[daharley]

would it be better to add to the sand bed since I have the hs crabs or still lower they are still small. I tested the source and 0 nitrates but I am color blind and my wife has hard time telling between reds from 40-160 . I was thinking possible test kit error but???

[daharley]

I feed 1 cube 2-3 times a day a little much for fish but I was giving extra since I dont want to starve hs crab which I hear is easy to do. The cowfish is definately the best eater. and 25 gallon change didn't change much if at all.

[surf&turf]

Make sure you rinse the cube before you feed.

[L8 2 RISE]

That's your problem I'd say. You're overfeeding.

[treesprite]

That's your problem I'd say. You're overfeeding.

 

++1

 

I usually feed 4 days a week and my crabs, shrimp, all other creatures, do not die from lack of food. Recently I started using Rod's food and the fish liked it so much I was spoiling them for a couple weeks - nitrate jumped up zippy fast and now I have to get it back down again.

 

As far as the liverock goes, I didn't know that the source of my serious nitrate issue was my liverock, until I completely started my tank over with the same rock, even after rinsing repeatedly and scrubbing every piece clean with a toothbrush. I put the rock back in and the nitrate went from zero (all new water) to around 40 in just a few days.

[L8 2 RISE]

When I had a 12 gallon nano, I had a valentini puffer, a watchman goby, pistol shrimp, and some other fish (can't remember). I fed 2 times a week max and rinsed the cube out before hand. Trust me, your fish will be fine with less feeding. As for the HS crabs, honestly they shouldn't even be in your tank. I don't know who told you they were alright, but they will quickly grow to be FAR to big.

[Origami]

Overfeeding is the source, I'd say. (Be sure to thaw the food first and rinse it, before putting it in your tank. The liquid in frozen food is full of stuff that can't be consumed by much else than bacteria.)

 

However, you need to keep in mind that the breakdown of waste is performed through a number of chains. Bacteria are at the bottom of this food chain. High nitrates are a sign of an incomplete nitrate cycle or insufficient capacity to meet the rate of nitrate generation. That is, there's not enough biological filtration to perform the final step of converting nitrates to nitrogen gas. This is where your sand bed (and live rock) come in.

 

Your next steps should be: 1) Rinse frozen foods. 2) Cut back on feeding frozen. Maybe mix in some flake food along the way. 3) Perform water changes. 4) Monitor your nitrates. (There's a new test device supposedly coming out of Hanna sometime which should make measuring nitrates more reliable and readable. See http://www.hannachecker.com/ ) 5) Consider altering your sandbed depth. You can go deeper or more shallow, the crabs won't care too much as long as they have a place to forage for food. Whatever you do, do it over several weeks to allow for the bacteria in your biological filtration system to develop as you alter the environment.

[ctenophore]

You might also give the new Instant Ocean nitrate reducing biopolymer a try:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=BJc&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=instant+ocean+natural+nitrate+reducer&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=12484697702681785555&ei=n2UVTLfbCoH78Aam3MCsCg&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ8wIwAA#

 

It is the same material that we are using in larger pellet form in this thread:

http://www.wamas.org/forums/topic/37366-diy-biopellets/

 

I have seen enough anecdotal evidence from my own trials so far that I would say it's worth buying a bottle and trying it.

 

Make sure your skimmer is working properly as if it works like my biopellets have, the skimmer will start pulling a lot more gunk. Also keep an eye on oxygen levels by making sure fish aren't breathing hard or otherwise showing signs of low oxygen. The bacteria use oxygen when converting nitrate to nitrogen gas.

[onux20]

What are you using for a substrate? Crushed coral will hold on to detritus which keeps waste in the tank and allows it to decompose leading to higher nitrates.

Just a thought.

Ron

[lanman]

I feed 1 cube 2-3 times a day a little much for fish but I was giving extra since I dont want to starve hs crab which I hear is easy to do. The cowfish is definately the best eater. and 25 gallon change didn't change much if at all.

 

A 25-gallon water change in a 60-gallon tank (even assuming a 20-gallon sump with 10-15 gallons in it) should have lowered your nitrates by about 30%, assuming the new water had ZERO.

 

bob

[gmubeach]

Does anyone know if you need High light for the deressa clam? I thought that all giant clams needed alot of light... if hes running a fish only system I doubt he has enough light and it won't last long? Maybe I'm wrong though noone seem to mention it..

[gmubeach]

Where do you get your water from?

[gmubeach]

You could also try a hang on the back refuguim with 12 hour nighttime lighting?

[OldReefer]

+1 on Ctenophore suggestion. These new nitrate bacteria driven nitrate reduction schemes are not the usual snake oil. Like others are suggesting, it is very important to keep an eye on the nutrients you add when you feed, but I feed much more than you do and I am running 0 nitrates.

 

Just make sure that you have good aeration if you use these products. With nitrate levels that high, the bacteria will go nuts for a bit and suck up a lot of oxygen. You will also find your skimmer pulling out stuff you never knew existed.

[gmubeach]

Guys noone answered about the clam?

[daharley]

As far as the Hs crab I have a 220 I can't afford to set up yet in the garage that probably wont be bid enough either with live rock so when they get that big I will have to donate od something.I was thinking 220 would be big enough until second look. So I have a few years until they outgrow me. Derasa clams don't need as much as others from what I have read and I changed the light to a Reef sun bulb 50/50combo actinic 420 phosphor 6500k trichromatic daylight phosphor. If that is not good enough please let me know. also got reef test kits for calcium and such. I am using live sand which after this post I will be going to buy more today so I can start raising it up. I just started using the instant ocean nitrate reducer last week still waiting for results. Unfortunately I am still using tap water but will be switching to either distilled or ro purifier soon. just had a daughter and wife is just starting back to work. I will start feeding less , and hopefully get some lower readings soon thanks for all the help.

[gmubeach]

ITs your water and I'm not sure the minuim a clam can take... I would think a big clam would need more light though maybe someone else will chime in here...I bought a do/ro machine a few years ago and have been very happy I got it used and replaced the filters!

[daharley]

I checked nitrates in the tap water and it read 0 but I know that it is still not good to use it hopefully just a little longer

[daharley]

I have been watching him pretty close apparently they will move to try to find more light if it is not enough and so far he hasn't and still reading up on them as time goes on.