So you thought YOUR nitrates were high...

SakuraSky · Jan 2, 2021

Crushed coral reduction part 1 for lower nitrates in the sand bed.
It just makes me realize how much junk is in there. So much detritus, ill have to blow it off the rocks and do a wc once it settles down.
I filled maybe a little less than ¼ a 5g bucket. Thats all I'm going to do for the week. Next week ill take out more from the middle section.
You can tell where I stopped lol. Its going to be much easier to vacuum and control the amount of crap in there.
My biopellets are coming Wed and this week I'm going to look for supplies to pump the reactor into the eflux

Cory · Jan 2, 2021

SakuraSky said:
Crushed coral reduction part 1 for lower nitrates in the sand bed.
It just makes me realize how much junk is in there. So much detritus, ill have to blow it off the rocks and do a wc once it settles down.
I filled maybe a little less than ¼ a 5g bucket. Thats all I'm going to do for the week. Next week ill take out more from the middle section.
You can tell where I stopped lol. Its going to be much easier to vacuum and control the amount of crap in there.
My biopellets are coming Wed and this week I'm going to look for supplies to pump the reactor into the eflux

Yes crushed coral will just trap organics that contain N and rot releasing nitrate. Sand will too, but provides additional denitrfication because its low oxygen levels provide a place for anaerobic bacteria to grow and reduce no3 to nitrogen gas.

SakuraSky · Jan 2, 2021

Cory said:
Yes crushed coral will just trap organics that contain N and rot releasing nitrate. Sand will too, but provides additional denitrfication because its low oxygen levels provide a place for anaerobic bacteria to grow and reduce no3 to nitrogen gas.

I really REALLY want regular sand in my tank.
But since it was a transported tank it was too risky to get away with adding a new sand bed. *sigh* I really wish there was an easy way to convert. I am happy I am making the changes I am though NOW to the tank. I'll just have to keep vac'n it

DaneGer21 · Jan 2, 2021

I’ve had nitrate over 150! Although, that was a fish only tank with messy predators haha

SakuraSky · Jan 3, 2021

DaneGer21 said:
I’ve had nitrate over 150! Although, that was a fish only tank with messy predators haha

Its a struggle with predator fish that are messy. my nitrates are like 300+ :/ messy large fish as well

SakuraSky · Jan 19, 2021

Still workin on the nitrates. I have removed 15 more pounds of substrate. My bio pellet reactor isn't hooked up yet because I have to do a custom plumbing hookup from the reactor to the pump since it won't fit in the sump as is. I emailed Eflux and cannot plumb it from my main pump. Doing lots of gravel vacs and w/c but isn't helping yet. Hoping to get the reactor running this week

SakuraSky · Feb 5, 2021

A little update on my nitrates!!! Now... I still don't have my bio pellet reactor up and running yet. I had to order a ball valve and another piece to get it up and running. Waiting for that to come in.
BUT .... I've made progress!!! Take a look!

this is red seas test kit at the dilution application. So it appears my nitrates are about 20 (multiplied by 5 per dilution) and that brings my nitrates to about 100ppms which is EXCELLENT. they were over 300 when I first made this thread. So down to 100ppms is marvelous. I've done a LOT of gravel removal and then gravel vac/wc. Yesterday was the first time not an immense amount of junk didn't come out of the gravel and it shows. I've removed almost 80lbs of crushed coral so far.
So I'm confident once I get the reactor up and running I can get the tank down to managble levels and add more fish like I want to eventually. (I want to be able to have at least 2-3 more fish and not worry about excess waste from feeding)

SakuraSky · Jan 12, 2024

This is a wicked old thread of mine but I am switching out the crushed coral for sand (have a sperate thread for that) and given ive had all my original large fish die of old age sadly. Only 1 fish left and urchins/inverts. My nitrates are extremely low and I'm so happy. Never thought I'd see the day where my nitrates were so low.