High nitrates

[jdiaz22]

Hello,

I've had my 29 Bio Cube for about six months. I purchased it from someone who had it running for about a year and a half. According to him the parameters where always perfect. As soon as i took over, my nitrates have always been high(40-60). Recently my scooter blenny, and a shrimp died. Also my anemone has been moving often. My tank contents are: 2 clown percale(mated), pajama cardinal, 1 shrimp, cleaner crew, brain coral, zoe colonies, sand sifting star(which has been revealing itself more than usual). My water parameters are as follows:
PH is 8.0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Salinity 1.025
Nitrate 80 last time i checked 3 days ago

My tank has biocube protein skimmer, metal halide light 150 watt, 2 power heads, heater, bioballs, and a UV sterilizer

What can i do to have perfect water parameters? I would like to add at least one more fish and plenty more zoes and some corals. I was thinking of adding those media baskets from InTank?!

Please advise. Thank youu

[xxstephensxx]

You need to do 20% water changes imo. I would do it maybe twice a week until you see the numbers drop and then cut back.

You should be doing a 10% water change every week. Have you been doing that?

[agruetz]

Water change is number 1. You have to get those numbers down or things are going to start dieing off. Cause more nitrates etc... Since there are live stock in there I would consider something like sea chem prime to help eliminate the nitrates (I normally do not recommend this as an on going basis, but when you have live stock suffering it can be a good stop gap.). I would also recommend you figure out why the nitrates are high, are you feeding to much? etc... High nitrates like that will kill the anemone for sure.

[thegrun]

I would suspect the bio-balls are the main culprit. They are great at breaking down ammonia, but they produce a lot of nitrates, particularly if used in a wet/dry set-up. Remove the bio-balls and replace them with cured live rock.

[jerseygurl]

First thing -

[jerseygurl]

First thing - DO A WATER CHANGE QUICK!

If you are doing proper water changes the there are three posibilities IMO:

Detritus in bio-balls
Septic sand
Septic LR

Basically, something dirty. I'd start with the bio-balls, take them out, put them in a bucket of salt water and rinse the crap out of them (literally). I would not just get rid of them all at once though, you have a pretty big bio-load you may need the bacteria in them, so put 3/4 of them back. Repeat every month until they're gone.

Then the sand, when you do a water change do a good deep sand vacuum. You can also use a turkey baster to blast all the crap out of it.

Same deal with LR, use a turkey baster and keep it clean.

Good luck!

[Michigan Mike]

Do a large water change as big as you can like 50% , clean filter media, what is the temp at? Biocubes run notoriously hot and with a halide it makes me wonder if your cooking them.

[Saramela]

I'm relatively new to the hobby myself, but I will say that I found the bio-ribbon stuff that came with my skimmer to be the culprit when I had extremely high nitrates. Once I got rid of it, and after a few water changes, my nitrates dropped considerably and are far more manageable now. Plus, my skimmer stays much cleaner and It seems to work more efficiently.

[immortl]

I originally started out with a completely stock biocube, utilizing the bio balls. While I did weekly to biweekly water changes (20%/40% depending on how long it had been), I never really did much to clean out the bio balls nor the rear chambers. After a few months my nitrate levels began to climb and bounced between 20-40ppm.

During a water change I took all of the bio balls out and rinsed them in salt water and siphon vacuumed all of the rear chambers, removing the false floors to get detritus trapped under those as well. At this time I put all but a handful of the bio balls back in.

Then over the next several water changes, I removed a handful of bio balls from the system each time - about 10-15 bio balls every 1.5-2 weeks. I believe they can be removed a bit faster than that based on what I have read here, but I was traveling for work a lot so I would do it each time I was back in town.

Upon removing the final bio balls from the tank I put in the media basket and fuge basket from InTank. In the media basket I put poly filter on top, purigen in middle chamber, and chemipure elite in the bottom chamber.

Since doing this my parameters have been very stable and nitrates have remained undetectable. I am quite pleased with the InTank setup and am glad I put it and the media in.

Thanks,
Joe

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are lots of ways to keep nitrate low, and water changes, while somewhat useful, are not going to be adequate to do the whole job.

Other options include growing macroalgae or an ATS, more skimming, deep sand beds and more rock, organic carbon dosing, and various types of denitrators. Using many of these is a good idea (I do).

This has more:

The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners,
Part 4: What Chemicals May Detrimentally Accumulate
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/rhf/index.php

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/8/chemistry