Nitrates
Printed From: Utah Reefs
Category: Help
Forum Name: General Help
Forum Description: The place to ask about pest, problems, hitchhikers, etc.
URL: http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47907
Printed Date: July 18 2025 at 1:17am
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Topic: Nitrates
Posted By: Borinal
Subject: Nitrates
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 11:16am
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So, when I came into the office Monday my tank was slowly increasing PPM Nitrates. I am using API Chemical Tests Monday 5 PPM Tuesday 10 PPM Wednesday 20 PPM Thursday 20 PPM All week solid on these readings PH 8.0 Ammonia 0 PPM Nitrite 0 PPM It's concerning me because everywhere I read says the Nitrates should be 0 PPM. I am using the filter in the overflow that came with my BIO CUBE, could that be causing a problem? It has some kind of media in it, and I'm questioning wether or not it should be used in a salt water tank at all. But wasn't able to find any info regarding it so I used it. My Nitrates were so good for so long, I don't understand the shift. Thanks in advance!
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Replies:
Posted By: MadReefer
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 11:35am
| Remove and rinse all mechanical filtration a piece at a time. Water change. |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 11:38am
| I also wonder if it could be the liverock that I added to my overflow. It's not submersed entirely, but has water running over it pretty evenly. I was told that it's much better to use than the bioballs. |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 11:38am
What counts as "Mechnical Filtration" ? There isn't a whole lot in here. I should have stated that, it's a 8g BioCube.
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Borinal wrote:Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 12:08pm
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Mechanical filtration is anything that removes visible (or close to visible) particles of waste. What you have read about Nitrates needing to be zero is incorrect. Reefs can do quite well with Nitrates as high as 50. May I suggest that you check here regarding anything you read elsewhere. We will let you know the truth.  Anything that is not submerged but has water flowing over it will create Nitrates. The best place for LR is in the display. There are better things that can be done with the overflow area. Feel free to ask. How old is this tank  ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 12:39pm
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Gotcha. Well what are some ideas then? There isn't room for the LR anywhere else.
The tank is almost a month old. |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 1:10pm
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Brand new. And what is in it now? ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 1:30pm
| A chromis and an emerald crab. |
Posted By: bur01014
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 3:00pm
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I think it will be very hard and unlikely to get that tank to have nitrates below 20. Without a good skimmer or fuge, it is much more difficult to reduce nitrates. You can throw macro in the display, but its messy and ugly (my opinion). I think that tank will be very reliant on water changes. Since it is so small, a 4 gallon change will get those nitrates down to 10 very quickly. Feed sparingly and be careful with it's stocking. It really isn't that old either, so this should be expected.
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Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 5:37pm
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Where does that leave me with coral? Is that going to be an option? I know I see a lot of nano reefs with coral, but perhaps they have it on a stand with a sump and what not. I really would like to upgrade the lighting to this http://www.nanotuners.com/product_info.php?cPath=73&products_id=620 and have some corals and a clam, an anemone with a clown fish and another 2 fish probably. I've read 3-4 fish is okay in a tank that size, but I know that some fish are dirtier than others. Also I guess there is a media basket system that will allow you to put in some live rock and macro in the middle section of the back wet/dry system. It's a small tank, but my budget is not small, and I'm not thinking small. I just don't know what is realistic. I'm not sure at what rate to even start introducing stuff.
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Posted By: bur01014
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 5:59pm
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Go slow with stocking and keep up on waterchanges and I think you should be able to keep most of the things you have listed.
Anemone & Clam, I would wait for the tank to run for 4-6 months....if this isn't your first tank, then you can bump that up sooner a month or two...
Clownfish and most any smaller fish that will be able to fit in that setup won't be bothered by the nitrates of 20....no worries there...
Softies and LPS corals should be okay....soft corals may actually thrive in the "dirtier" water....nitrates will make xenia grow like crazy....some even use such corals in their sumps/fuges to help "clean" and filter the water.
SPS- You will have a difficult time keeping these in that tank without a sump/skimmer/fuge/etc...has it been done? yes, but rarely successful....
So I wouldn't worry about nitrates of 20, but keep in mind SPS corals aren't really an option, but most other small, hardy fish and Softies and most LPS corals will be fine. The anemone and clam may have some stress if the nitrates go any higher than 20-30 for long periods of time, but I don't see that happening in your tank because it is so easy to do a water change and quite easy to change out enough water to cut the nitrates in half.
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Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 6:05pm
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Yeah, it's not my first tank. When the ex and I split, I couldn't move the 160g, and other tanks. But I'm glad to get another one going. I am afraid to put Xenia in a tank this small in fear that when I come back into the office from the weekend it may have overrun my tank! "Frogspawn" though I would love. I'm not oppose to setting something up in the stand, I just wasn't sure how elegantly you could setup a sump system with a nano aquarium. I'm used to drilled overflows, and etc... A system that was built around the whole idea, I'm not really sure how to get the water out and back into this thing. That was a concern, I thought that you didn't really want to change out too much water at once. Is that not the case? Is the liverock and livesand all that really makes up your filtration? I worry about losing too much calcium and etc... Maybe I don't totally understand though. Any insight would be helpful. I've had people tell me to change out half of my water. But previously I always thought that was a bad thing to do.
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Posted By: bur01014
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 6:19pm
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I would do 10% changes daily until nitrates drop to a safe range....again 20 isn't bad, just depends on what animals you have in there. Some people are opposed to massive waterchanges....I've never been in the position where my water has been so bad I needed to change out 50%. BUT- if you do run into a problem, 50% is very doable and easy in a 8 gallon system...I should have made myself more clear.
Waterchanges with a balanced salt will replenish that tank with all the elements and alk/cal it needs. Especially since SPS don't look like a possibility, I wouldn't even worry about that right now. Focus on getting the "big three" in line...just keep those nitrates steady and low as possible. A frog spawn would do just fine in there.
The overall message is...this small 8 gallon tank will probably require more maintenance and a better eyeful watch then your 160 gallon....small tanks are just difficult IMO....
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Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 6:20pm
| I'm very interested in using the stand, I want to setup a reefkeeper system and I'm a software engineer so I'd like to develop some mobile software to monitor the tank remotely, log, alert, etc... |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: March 31 2011 at 6:24pm
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Yeah, you are very correct. They definitely seem to require a lot more. I had a 12g nano, but it didn't have anything special in it. With space at a premium in my office I decided to go this route, however. I am considering a 29 as I don't know how I would be able to get the water into a sump without a pump. How do people set that stuff up with these cubes? I could get it back in there just fine, just not sure how to get it out, maybe it would need to be drilled? I don't mind the extra attention however. I'm here most of the time and I have a lot of freedom with my work. Also I forgot that reef crystals supplement most of that when added to your water. Thanks! I've almost exclusively used instant ocean reef crystals.
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Posted By: dc
Date Posted: April 01 2011 at 12:03am
| pull the bio balls out of the back and add rubble rock instead also beside the return pump there is a sponge take it out too. add rubble slowly though or make sure it has been cycled. |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: April 01 2011 at 1:39am
| My live rock is cycled, I'm worried about the fact that most of it is sticking out of the water. Also, a lot of people are telling me that the rock will break down and clock my pump back there. I've got a bunch of live rock in there now but i don't know if it's staying wet. |
Posted By: SGH360
Date Posted: April 01 2011 at 3:35am
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Sorry but i did not read all of the posts.
Do you have Macroalgae growing in your tank? Nitrates arent that bad but it does slow grow on corals since the algae in the coral explodes in growth being a type of algae. like any other type of algae. |
Posted By: Ryan Thompson
Date Posted: April 01 2011 at 9:07am
Bio balls = rock rubble. A place where de-nitrifying bacteria can house and break down nitrogen. Both become clogged with detritus over time and flow slows down. Low flow is NEVER a good thing in this hobby. Pull that rock out of the back and let the water have some free flow back there! I had a 24 gallon Nano Cube for 2 years and my Dad is going on 3 years with his. I have tried just about everything with them. Those back compartments are best left alone. Add a heater and some carbon. Leave the rest of it alone. The rock and sand in the display are where you want the biological filtration to happen. |
Posted By: Mark Peterson
Date Posted: April 01 2011 at 9:09am
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LS, LR, LW and Algae are the four components of biofiltration. Nothing else is needed. As I believe I said before, anything sticking out of the water, but is being splashed with water is producing Nitrates. Most often it's bioballs that have been placed in this situation so we have affectionately named them the "Nitrate Factory". That LR sticking out of the water is doing the exact same thing. I would never have LR out of water if I could help it. LR must be submerged. It is very easy to get all N compounds in this tank to levels that will grow any coral without much added effort on your part. Clams actually like an environment where there is enough pollution to grow Phytoplankton which they in turn consume. I'm on the Reef Tour. I hope you will stop by and let me show you my small tanks and large coral farm that are operated skimmerless. ------------- Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks: www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: April 01 2011 at 9:16am
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I'd love to see your tanks!
I'm pulling the rock out today and doing a larger water change. |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: April 02 2011 at 2:21am
| Rejoice! My test is bad. I tested clean water and it showed lots of nitrates. So I took a sample to the LFS and nitrates 0. All params perfect! I added three new members to the tank. A black sea urchin, a burgundy angler, and a bumblebee snail. The emerald crab is going because I watched him about take off my chromis entire tailfin before I could stop him. Plenty of algae, albeit not "bubble algae" and I fed him frozen mysis which he loved to eat. Maybe it gave him a taste for blood. Either way trying to avoid larger aggro inverts. Angler is enough of a predator for my tank. |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: April 02 2011 at 2:22am
| Oh I got a sachem marine test set. It reads lower than the Hagen they used. Or just more definitely zero. Anyone had any experience with the Seachem products? |
Posted By: bfessler
Date Posted: April 02 2011 at 7:14am
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I use the SeaChem Iodine test kit. It works great especially if you're dosing AquaVitro Vibrance. I use Salifert test kits for the other tests but the Salifert kit gives a false positive for high iodine when using Vibrance so I use SeaChem for Iodine. ------------- Burt An equal opportunity reefer, I support all hobbyists and organizations involved in Marine Aquarium Keeping. [email protected] |
Posted By: Borinal
Date Posted: April 06 2011 at 2:53am
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I just wanted to make mention that that Seachem Marine Basic is an awesome test kit.
Ammonia (free and total), Alkalinity, PH High Range, Nitrites and Nitrates. Much finer range of measurements also. However the marine special is silica, iodine, and phosphate. Which I figured might include more. |