jaguilar Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 i need some serious help with my nitrates. first of all, i have an eclipse12 that has been up and running since the beginning of august. all has been fine up until last week. i usually tested my water at least once a week, and everything always came out good.(amm-0,nitrite-0,nitrate-0-5,ph.-8.4) i would change out approximately 2 gallons every three weeks even though my water would test ok prior to w/c. i have at least 18lbs of live rock and 20lbs of live sand. my bioload consisted of two false percs, a firefish, a fighting conch, a turbo snail, and four small hermit crabs. last week, i installed a new aquaclear200 power filter which replaced the stock filtration unit. a few days after this replacement, one of my clowns died. i immediately tested my water, and all was normal except the nitrates which read between 20-40. i gave it a couple of days and retested the nitrates which still read 20-40. two days ago i did a 2.5 gallon water change. i tested once again last night, and still my nitrates read 20-40. does this mean that the filter media in the stock unit was so heavily populated w/bacteria that by removing it and replacing it with new media caused my nitrates to spike so high?? it is the only thing i can think of that would cause this. BTW, the stock filter had been running w/out the biowheel since the cycle finished in august.(never had high nitrates) i don't attribute my clown's death solely to the rise in nitrates, because in the last 3weeks he had lost some coloration along with most of his appetite. but i'm sure the high nitrates didn't help... my other livestock appears to be doing fine. if a water change didn't help, is there anything else i can do to lower my nitrates? or do i just wait it out and let my new filter media build up it's bacterial population?.?..(how long does this take?) well, thanks in advance for any help you can provide. sorry for the long-winded message. j.... Link to comment
tinyreef Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 does this mean that the filter media in the stock unit was so heavily populated w/bacteria that by removing it and replacing it with new media caused my nitrates to spike so high?? sounds like it, altho the clown's poor health prior to that doesn't sound right either. how long did you have it? the system should stabilize in a week or so altho i'm surprised the change resulted in such a shock since you have LR/LS already. the media shouldn't have accounted for so much of the bene bacteria. Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 7, 2003 Author Share Posted November 7, 2003 am i in the wrong forum?.?... is there another 'help the dumb newbie' forum?.?.... please help me... all alone out here..... Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 7, 2003 Author Share Posted November 7, 2003 tinyreef, sorry about the reply, you posted before i did, so i sent the message thinking nobody was gonna help. as for the dead clown, he had been in my tank for about 2mths. he was doing just fine until about 3 weeks ago. he started eating less than he did before, and his color had started to fade slightly, even though he was still eating. i thought this might have been due to the larger more dominant clown who is somewhat of a bully. but after i changed my filter, i got the nitrate spike and i think it was too much stress for him to handle. other fish are doing fine... Link to comment
tinyreef Posted November 7, 2003 Share Posted November 7, 2003 i thought this might have been due to the larger more dominant clown who is somewhat of a bully. possibly, i know how the clown feels. nag, nag, nag. you can't blame the poor clown, at least my wife doesn't grow bigger and force me to dance the cha-cha as sign of submission. if so, i'd probably hang myself too. btw, don't worry if no one answers right away. just give the thread a 'bump'. i'm a lazy slob so i just happen to have the time (not!) to surf all day long. Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 7, 2003 Author Share Posted November 7, 2003 one of my questions is still unanswered. since i have recently done a water change and it still didn't help my nitrates, is there anything else i could do to lower them?.?.? or is there anything i can do to speed up the process of bacterializing my filter media? thanks .... Link to comment
onthefly Posted November 8, 2003 Share Posted November 8, 2003 MW's "Coralvital LSB" has worked for me. Link to comment
tinyreef Posted November 8, 2003 Share Posted November 8, 2003 one of my questions is still unanswered. time will eventually lower the nitrates as denitrating bacteria colonize the LR/LS. further wc's can lower the nitrates further. limit your food input to what the livestock really eat and cleanup any excess detritus all contribute to limiting nutrient levels and nitrates. the other bene bacteria should stabilize in a week or so as mentioned before. hth Link to comment
MrConclusion Posted November 8, 2003 Share Posted November 8, 2003 You should do a more serious water change. Changing 20% of the water only removes 20% of the nitrates. I usually change 25% every day for three days in a row. After the dilution factor, that's about a 55% actual turnover. (There's a strange superstition that water changes as small as 10% magically get all the 'trates out. You may not be a believer, but they are out there!) You may want to get yourself a clump of macroalgae and put it in the Aquaclear (if it gets light) or somewhere in the tank. This will seriously reduce the nitrates. Also, try not to disturb your sand bed as it matures. In the deeper pockets, certain bacteria flourish in the oxygen-deprived areas... and they are the ones which reduce nitrates through a slow but steady diffusion action. You'll know this is working when you start getting gas bubbles forming in the sand bed (they'll be visible at the glass.) Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 8, 2003 Author Share Posted November 8, 2003 i've never believed that 10% water changes were sufficient enough for such a small tank. the amount that i change out is actually a lot closer to 25%. up to this point, my w/c's were done every three weeks. does this mean that i should do them more often, or do i just remove more water every three weeks?.?.?? i had already figured that i should do them more often(perhaps every two weeks) but i'm very limited on time so it would be difficult for me to do a 25%w/c for three days in a row. but i might try the macroalgae approach, i was just worried about it overgrowing my tank.. thanks for the help... j... Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 10, 2003 Author Share Posted November 10, 2003 anyone?.?..... anyone?.?..... Link to comment
Reefer_Buddha Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 my trates were at 50ppm once. Took 4 water changes to get em down. Plus i stopped feeding for a while also and skimmed the hell out of it. Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 28, 2003 Author Share Posted November 28, 2003 hello, it's me again... well, it's been over three weeks since i first started this thread, and i am still haveing the same problems. i have done a 2g waterchange every week with no results... my nitrates are still rediculously high.(50+) and the media in my filter never kicked in as was expected. i even tried a handful of grape caulerpa, but this stuff has since vanished and didn't seem to have any effect. is there any sort of media that can be used to lower nitrates?.?.?.. i am getting very desperate, and am willing to try anything.. my livestock still looks ok, but i'd like to lower my nitrates so that i could replace the clown that i lost before. please help..... any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.. thanx j. Link to comment
Reefer_Buddha Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 are you testing the water youre putting back in your tank before it goes in? Sometimes its easy to forget and not test your makeup water. Are you using ro/di for topoffs and wc's? Link to comment
jaguilar Posted November 28, 2003 Author Share Posted November 28, 2003 as far as makeup water goes, i use purified drinking water from a store called 'water express' which uses ro/di. and this was on a suggestion from one of our best local fish shops which happens to use the same water. they also have a nice display tank set up in this water store. i have personally tested this water for nitrates and came up with a reading of zero. this water is used for both w/c's and also for top-off. the only other water that i've used came from the 'glacier' water machines outside the grocery store. this also tested zero for nitrates. i am all out of ideas. i was looking for some sort of media that would absorb the trates out of my water. i know they are out there because i have seen them on occasion, but can't remember exactly where i saw it. thanks for the help. j Link to comment
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