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Home      Reply		Viewed: 273 -- Replies: 7
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Posted	NITRATE!!!
28-08-2006 21:29 by stevo	hi guys, i have a marine 180 tank which has been runnin for 2months ish now, at first everything was fine i added fish then i went threw the whole new tank thing, and my nitrate level went sky high, so iv been doin frequent water changes n yet no change iv tested my r.o water n its fine, i was told caulerpa was good at reducing it yet no change so iv got hold of a inline nitrate remover n to cut a long story short will 1. this realy work 2.will the media inside be ok even thou its sat without use for a while,i no brine water recharges it but does the media ever go inactive
29-08-2006 08:49 by yanton	how many fish did you get? hopefully you didnt overstock in the early stages. have you tested for ammonia? if clear, then you will know that the filtration bacteria are starting to do their work. i would recommend getting some polyfilter, which soaks up any excess nitrates (and other pollutants). its either that or more water changes [20% fortnightly or 10% weekly]. i have always found nitrate levels the most challenging. eventually i found that my deep gravel and coral sand bed did the nitrate handling and levels went almost to zero.
29-08-2006 10:07 by Alan	Describe your entire set up including stocking levels and water turnover rate also how much live rock do you have and how many litres is the tank. I suspect you are being over reliant on artificial filtration methods these are fantastic for removing ammonia and nitrite but produce nitrate at an alarming rate. I changed my set up to natural about 18months ago and every since then my nitrate level has been undetectable. I use to have a battle to get it below 25 ppm.
29-08-2006 19:17 by stevo	its a 240 lire tank previously ran for 2-3 yrs before me erm live rock not too sure but covers most of tank,inch n half at least of sand, my ammonia n nitrate have always been ok, have been using polyfilter, water changes approx 20% these last few weeks,fish are 2 percula's 3 chromis(previously 6) and the clean up crew
30-08-2006 08:57 by Alan	Whats the turnover rate of water in the tank? Are there any external filters? Do you have massive growth of coraline algae over the rock? Is there a detritus build up in the tank? Whats you phosphate level like? How much do you feed them and how often?
30-08-2006 10:00 by stevo	i have a fluval 304, 2 maxi jets 1400, small amount of coraline, phosphate fine and i feed them once and i always make sure its gone, which the shrimps make sure of
30-08-2006 13:02 by Alan	How often do you clean the fluval 304? I suspect this is acting as your nitrate factory. Keep it as clean as you can to avoid any detritus build up that will reduce the nitrate production of the filter to its lowest possible level. The problem you have is a filtration system that doesn't completely cycle waste that is why I prefer natural methods of filtration for reefs such as algae scrubbers deep sand beds and live rock. The only way you can combat the nitrate is more live rock and weekly filter cleaning with old tank water. As a means of roughly working out the weight of live rock you have a rough estimate of a normal size mug being equal to about 1 kilo of live rock should be fairly close to what you have, make sure you ignore any rock that isn't live rock. You want to have roughly the equivalent of 25 mugs basically 25 kilos in your tank iyts a bit arse about face this method of working it out but it should help give you a rough idea. Also what skimmer do you have?
30-08-2006 15:46 by stevo	yeh i should be getting more live rock soonish, the filter i guess i havnt been cleaning as regulary as i shud, i have a red sea prizm, live rock at a huge guess is maybe round the 20kg mark, ta for the help btw

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