AmQuel Plus

[harlock]

I've been having a bit of a nitrate spike as of recently. They usually sit at around 5 ppm and now they're at 20. I know this is still a 'safe zone' for fish and corals, but I really like keeping the nitrates down to a max of 10.

 

I just bought a small bottle of AmQuel+ but I'm hesitant in using it after reading some of the posts here (especially about corals melting). I've been changing out water like crazy, and the nitrates haven't really budged. I added a skimmer about a week ago; do you think this might have something to do with the nitrate spike?

 

Anyway... any more info on this AmQuel+ would be helpful. I'm certainly not putting it in the water until I know its exact affects.

 

-h-

[yoshiod9]

test the water youre using to do your wc with...if the water isn't your problem, you need to find out where they are coming from. don't just try to solve the problem.

 

you should, ideally, keep your nitrate levels as close to 0 as you possibly can. corals tend to brown out when there is nitrate in the water because it's easier to use the nitrate to provide energy rather than light.

 

skimmers won't add to your nitrate levels.

 

my guess is that you feed your tank...fairly often, too. right? cut back your feedings to ONCE a week...tops. keep doing your wc(if there are no noticable nitrate readings, of course) and things should settle out soon.

 

goodluck.

[reef-luva]

When we think of all the chemicals, molecules, gas and bacteria that make up living water we rarely think of the way they depend and react with and upon each other.This is as important as the individual levels of any one ingredient in a reef system.

 

Like Yoshiod said, cut your feeding back.

List your critters for us...we need to see.....inside... :

[drbegalke]

I agree with the others... but if you need a reef safe detox product, check out Prime.

[harlock]

Thanks for the advice, gang. I'll list the critters, but 1st, here's a nitrate update. I prepared the tank to last for 2 days without my attention because I was going away. This was scary as i felt the tank was in a fragile state, but i HAD to leave. Here's what I found when I came back.

 

Other than the water being lower, which I expected, the nitrates were lower; i'd say about 12-15 ppm given the color shade, for it wasn't a color shade of 10 nor 20, yet much closer to the shading of 10. So, I did a water change right away, and here i am. I guess something is working if the nitrates went down from 20 to this almost 10 color.

 

Anyway... here's what's in the tank:

 

The Tank Itself:

 

10g reef

21 lbs of LR

15 lbs of crushed coral

40w PC lighting (10 hours a day)

prism skimmer

mj400

 

The Reef Life:

 

1 silver dollar sized ricordia

1 nickel sized pimply brown shroom

small colony of peach/green buttons

small colony of pink/white buttons

3 golf ball sized colonies of hammer coral (all on 1 tonga branch)

1 orange sponge

1 electric flame scallop

1 purple sea slug

1 rock flower anemone

6 astrea snails

5 bumblebee snails

3 small red legged hemit crabs

1 nickel sized pencil urchin (came with the LR 6 months ago -- was the size of a corn kernal then)

1 two and a half inch lawnmower blenny.

Lots of other strange small lifeforms.

 

Until I hear back from you guys, I'll be preparing more water!

 

Later

 

-h-

[harlock]

Haven't heard back from any of you on the crit list yet, but i have more news for y'all. I had gotten my nitrates down to 10 yesterday' they were slowly lowering after many many many water changes over a week long period. I then fed my inverts because it had been a while (3 days). This morning when i checked my nitrates, they were at a whopping 20+ What gives? I let the invert food circulate for about 45 minutes, then turned the skimmer back ON. It was doing its skimmery thing just fine.

 

So after seeing the 20+ this morning, I changed out a bunch of the water, and decided to try the AmQuel+ In a nutshell, it didn't do much at all. I'm sure that the nitrate coloring was CLOSER to 20 than it was before (even after the water change i did today), but it wasn't the 13 ppm difference that the bottle claims it will erradicate.

 

All in all, things LOOK alright in the reef. Any more suggestions? Cuz i'd really not like to put any more of that AmQuel crap in the water.

 

OH, and I pulled out some more algae last night, and this morning. Is it possible that I popped a few bubble algaes and released the excess nitrate???

 

-h-

[harlock]

NITRATE UPDATE:

 

Yoshiod, I knew all along that i should be looking for the source of the higher nitrates, and decided to go on the quest. Especially after that AmQuel+ hardly did a thing.

 

I pulled out some LR yesterday, and swooshed around the substrate. There may have been a decaying bristle worm in the crushed coral. It wasn't until the evening when my wife came home that i believe we pinned the source down. She spotted the lawnmower blenny in one of his secret hidey-holes, looking pretty dead. So i pulled the rock, dumped his body, and did another water change.

 

I feel there needs to be an extra explaination here, so here'goes. My fish have all dropped like flies over the past 3 weeks. They seemed to be coming down, one by one, with an itchy-scratchy disease (i posted about this on the disease forum as well). There's something in the tank water that i think will only go away after multiple water changes, as i don't think i can or should put meds in with corals. Anyway, i figured that the lawnmower had bought a ticket to ride, but expected the ammonia/nitrite levels to show something too. In fact, i think only the nitrate was going up.

 

Here's what i found this morning. After removing the body last night, and changing out water, the nitrates were now slightly below 20 ppm (maybe 17-18 ppm?). A big improvement during the course of the night. I changed out another 2 pitchers worth of water again this morning, and will check the nitrate levels a little later, as well as change out some more water.

 

Thanks for the help guys! I'll let you know if things get any better, or if things crash again!

 

-h-

[Duke13]

One advice, get rid of the crushed coral. Crushed coral are like nitrate trapping 'pockets'. Once disturbed, it can release those nitrates causing spikes. Also, fish diseases thrive in crush coral and make it harder for medicines to fully kill them. If possible, slowly remove the crushed coral 1-2 cups per water change. Once it's gone, slowly introduce a cup of live sand per water change or just go bare bottom.

[harlock]

Duke, is it possible to sift the crushed coral once in a while to release the nitrate pockets, and then do a water change? I've actually been doing that, as well as water changes, and my nitrates have now been coming down. Getting rid of the dead fish also helped The nitrates are now at 11-12ppm (if not lower because i did another water change this morning). By Sunday, the nitrates should be at, or lower than 5 ppm.

 

-h-

[Duke13]

Your nitrates aren't too bad. I know of many people who can't get their nitrates under 20 and I've seen these tanks from the start.

 

You could sift and do a water change. However, it would be just as easy to remove the crushed coral too. The problem is that the nitrates will build up again in the long run because crushed coral is such a poor substrate. However, if you can keep up with the water the changes, there's no reason why you couldn't keep the CC substrate.

[harlock]

Yeah. Since this spike, which was totally a result of dead fish and algae blooms, I've been changing 20% of the water out in the morning, then 20% at night, for a total of 40% a day, all week. This is pretty time consuming. If the nitrates don't stay leveled out by the time i get them down to 5ppm or less, i'm going to think about swapping out the CC for LS. Right now, it's an undertaking that i don't want to get mixed up in.

 

-h-

[DiverDave]

I'll bite. Can someone tell me what the difference is between live sand and crushed coral? Please don't respond with reference to the living organisms/bacteria; I am well aware of that. I'm specifically talking about the chemical difference of the substrate its self. Anyone with the chemical interaction/ballanced equation of the substate with NO3 would be helpful.

[harlock]

DD...

 

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but perhaps this might help. The problem with CC is that it is heavier than LS, so it doesn't get swifted as often as the sand by fish, etc. It also has more crevasses (spelling... whoa!) that trap nitrates. LS is so fine that nothing really gets in it, except deep down, when the sand isn't sifted, but that rarely happens. For example, I've had one bristle worm (that i know of) die in my CC subtrate because it couldn't work its way back to the surface. In LS that wouldn't have been a problem. So imagine how easily it would be for nitrate pockets to become 'trapped' in the substrate.

 

Was this what you were asking?

 

-h-