Nitrate problems

[rlirwin]

I've been having problems with nitrate level. It's currently 30-40 and I can't seem to get it lower. I have a 10 gallon tank with about 10-12 lbs of live rock, two clown fish, hermit crabs, and snails. I change 2-2.5 gallons of water at least every two weeks. The tank has been set up for about 18 months. I don't move the rocks to clean underneath (or behind the ones that are very close to the side). I have a Millenium filter that hangs on the back, and I use a phosphate filter pad rather than the carbon filled filter insert. Any ideas. Thanks

[Allmost]

you need to export the nutrition's, somehow.

a protein skimmer is probably too big for a 10G.

you could feed less,

use Chemi pure Elite instead of phosphate removers (it traps organics as well as po4 and carbon)

do water changes weekly (highly recommended)

or turn your HOB filter to a HOB Fuge where you grow can grow cheato.

with such low bioload, I would say doing water changes weekly and using chemi pure elite would lower your no3 quite fast.

[bertoni]

Chemi-Pure Elite contains carbon and GFO, and some resins that aren't useful in saltwater. I'd stick to buying my own GFO and carbon, personally, but the Elite won't hurt anything, and has a decent grade of carbon.

That's a fair fish load for that size tank, and I'm not surprised at the nitrate level. That level won't hurt any of the animals listed, so you could just ignore it. Some people dose carbon to reduce the nutrient load, but I'd worry about oxygenation in such a small system.

Moved to New to the Hobby for more views.

[Tuscaquatics]

I run a 10 gallon with just live rock, a powerhead and a HOB filter with Chemi-Pure. I also leave a clump of cheato in there kind of under the filter's output that I harvest pretty slowly.

Like someone else said, the key is not having a huge bioload in a tank that small. The tiny water volume is almost exponentially less forgiving than a more traditional reef tank should be. In mine I only have a striped damsel and an orange-spotted goby along with a few snails. And they really only get fed about every other day.

Then again, now that I look I see you only have two clowns in there. What kind, though? If they're not Oscellaris then they're probably too big for that tank altogether.

[rlirwin]

The clownfish are oscellaris. I've had them for about 8 years in the same tank. Until about 1 1/2 years ago, I had the millenium filter on the back and an under gravel filter and only 5lbs live rock. Discovered that my nitrate test kit had expired when I took some water to the fish store for testing and found it over 100. At that time, I took out the undergravel filter (what a mess underneath), replaced the gravel with 15lbs of live sand, and got 7lbs more of live rock. Was fine until about 2 months ago, then the nitrate went up from under 20 to about 40-50. I change 2 gallons of water at least every other week, but never clean under the rocks. Wondering if I should. I haven't been able to figure out why it's elevated and won't go down.

[Percula9]

Change water every week instead.

[bertoni]

I suspect the live rock and sand have stabilized in population. For a fairly long time, growing animal and microbial population can consume a lot of nutrients. The nutrient level is fine for those animals, so I wouldn't worry.