Nitrate revisited...

[peteb3]

Here is where I am at. It has been 29 days since the birth of my 28g JBJ HQI NC. I used my cousins LR, live sand, and water to start my tank. My phosphates and nitrate was a little high after a few days so I did 5g water changes on the 8th, 13th,and 18th day. While my first test showed my nitrates as 40ppm on Api test kit, I have never had them lower than 20ppm with the water changes. My theory is that the sand and rock had so much crap in it and it may have been out of the water for a little while that my nitrates will take forever to come down. So I need suggestions on what to do. Right now I have only CUC in there, 9 turbos, 5 nassarius, and 4 blue legs. I have a frogspawn that I have had from the start date and a little polypy thing I bought for 10 bucks in there. There are tons of micro serpent stars and I think a copepod must have just squirted out some babies because my glass is covered in them. I would like to avoid removing the sand and rock from the tank if possible. Can I just stir it up alot prior to water changes and use a powerhead to spray the rocks? Like I said, I'm open to suggestions. Also, all of my other water tests check out fine with the exception of carbonate hardness which seems to stay at about 12.

[MikeTR]

5 gallons won't make a big enough dent... try doing like 50%... yes 14 gallons. Could even do 20Gs. Your nitrates are high from the cycle.

[tike]

^ +1. And if you are feeding anything stop for about a week.

[coolwaters]

have u increased the flow rate on your tank? like 1200gph+?

the more flow will increased the surface area contact of the live rocks and sand. just like a fan blowing over a heatsink.

 

if you have life running around then thats a good thing. huge water changes is like the only natural thing to do. theres filtering media like seachem or carbon.

[peteb3]

ok more water change, will do. I have not been adding any food into the tank. I have 2 nano korilia which I will be adding to the tank as soon as I have some free time to dremel the hood to accommodate the cords. Should I not stir up the sand at all on my big water change? Thanks for the input guys!

[Nemo Niblets]

I'm not sure if the Nanocube has this problem, but I had this funky problem with my nitrates for a bit in my Biocube. By the return pump I had a sponge filter that was collecting nitrates. I would do 50% water changes and my nitrates would stay exactly at 20. I had no clue what was wrong, but my fish store told me to take the sponge out. Instantly, my nitrates stopped rising. So clean out your filter and hardware and stuff, maybe that will help.