please help

[reeftankgirl13]

I can not seem to get my nitrates down. My ammonia is 0ppm and my nitrite is 0ppm But my nitrates won't go down any lower than 20ppm which I know isn't terrible but I want them lower. I have aeration going from my power head and cheato algae in my HOB filter. No filter cartridge so its not leaching back into the tank from there. Idk what else to do any suggestions?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

What type of substrate do you have?
What type and how many fish do you have?
What and how much do you feed?
Do you have a skimmer on the tank?

 

[Squishie89]

How often and how big are you doing water changes?

 

[howaboutme]

And... How old is the tank?

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2

 

[reeftankgirl13]

My tank is a 20g with fine sand live and I do 25% water change every two weeks cuz all I have right now is a CUC no fish cause my tank has ick or the first two fish I got died of it anyway so I'm not buying anymore fish for a few more weeks. My tank is 4 months old and I have 6.5 lb. LR getting more and thinking about adding a day 10g sump for more LR and cheato. I am feeding one little pellet thing every other day for the nassurius snail and hermit. No skimmer low budget

 

[reeftankgirl13]

Diy 10g sump*

 

[howaboutme]

What was the process of adding your live sand and current LR? Did you add them all at the same time? If not, watch for mini cycles. You mentioned that you want to add more LR, just be careful, this will cause another cycle. I think most CUC's can survive this but you should always add everything at once or before you add any livestock. Usually, when people want to add more rock in an established tank, it's usually dry, base rock, not LR.

 

[mike007]

I think you are going to have to get a skimmer. Even though you have live rock thats not enough. If the rock was not cured you are probaly getting alot of die off and skimming will get rid of this. With a tank that size any changes water chemistry will be magnified. You have to stay on top of it. Be carefull not to add to many fish and be carefull about overfeeding.

 

[stylaster]

another thing to do is see if you can borrow another nitrate kit to double check

 

[reeftankgirl13]

another thing to do is see if you can borrow another nitrate kit to double check

I had LFS do it with same result

 

[reeftankgirl13]

I think you are going to have to get a skimmer. Even though you have live rock thats not enough. If the rock was not cured you are probaly getting alot of die off and skimming will get rid of this. With a tank that size any changes water chemistry will be magnified. You have to stay on top of it. Be carefull not to add to many fish and be carefull about overfeeding.

What is the specific reason for a skimmer? Like pros and cons wise. The rock was cured at LFS

 

[reeftankgirl13]

What was the process of adding your live sand and current LR? Did you add them all at the same time? If not, watch for mini cycles. You mentioned that you want to add more LR, just be careful, this will cause another cycle. I think most CUC's can survive this but you should always add everything at once or before you add any livestock. Usually, when people want to add more rock in an established tank, it's usually dry, base rock, not LR.

I have a low budget to work with so I've been adding slowly. I was reading in another post that adding dry rock can also cause mini cycles?

 

[mike007]

Protein skimmers remove nutrients in the water which cause nitrate problems which in turn will lead to algae growth. If plan on corals this a must have. If you are on a low budget maybe you should just do fish untill you can upgrade.

 

[howaboutme]

I have a low budget to work with so I've been adding slowly. I was reading in another post that adding dry rock can also cause mini cycles?

Well, there's always a chance any rock will have die off but it's much less w/ dry, base rock. They are usually mined inland. Check out reefcleaners.org or marcorocks.com.

I saw that you bought cured LR, that's better if it wasn't out of the water for more than 30 or 45 minutes. Again, there's always a chance of die off causing a mini cycle. It's always helpful to further cure the rock in a separate container w/ circulation and heater if possible to make sure there is no cycle.

By the way, you will find many people that will say a nitrate of 20ppm is fine...I am one of those that agree, just don't let it go higher. A lot of corals need some nutrients to thrive.

 

[spacetime]

Try dosing Micro Bacter 7 aka MB7 and give it time, I've also dosed Dr. Tims as well. Biological diversity is a good thing.

 

[beaslbob]

During initial startup on "planted" tanks it is normal to get a 20ppm or so nitrates spike as the plant life (chaeto) is consuming ammonia directly for nitrogen not nitrates. Then as aerobic bacteria builds up and consumes the ammonia, the chaeto is "forced" to grudengly get its nitrogen from the nitrates. At that point nitrates drop down.

So your tank could be doing fine.

I would expand the chaeto to the max to insure the tank is "plant" (macro) controlled.

And the skimmer will not be needed.



my .02