View Full Version : How much should I feed my 500 gallon tank with keeping Nitrates down?
walleyebum
01/25/2015, 01:54 PM
How much should I feed my 500 gallon tank with keeping the phosphates and nitrates down? I have a reef octopus super external 6000 skimmer and do water changes every 2 weeks. But the nitrates and phosphates are getting high. Phosphates at 3 and nitrates are at 10. Throughout the week I usually feed twice a day and switch it up between, pellets, flakes, krill, lettuce, and mysis.
Stock list
8 tangs,
5 angels
6 clowns,
6 wrasses,
6 chromis
5 other randoms
outssider
01/25/2015, 03:07 PM
phosphates at 3 ?.... is that a typo ? if not I think that maybe a tad high :inlove:
walleyebum
01/25/2015, 03:25 PM
Its high....
Dmorty217
01/25/2015, 03:48 PM
3 or .3? If they are 3 you will need some sort of swimming pool phosphate/algae remover and dilute it. Do you have a refugium hooked up to the tank?
walleyebum
01/25/2015, 04:19 PM
I used the Api test kit and came up with 3.0, I have a sump just filled with liverock
greaps
01/25/2015, 04:31 PM
If you have a very good skimmer, I would vodka dose, and explore the possibility of a large deep sand bed. I read in the advanced topic forum, the idea of remote deep sand beds, there is a case where a fish store had chronically high nitrates, a deep sand bed solved the problem in about 3 weeks reducing nitrates to around 5-10 if I'm not mistaken. They used a single 55g tank filled over 75% with fine sand, with only an inch or so of water running across the top. The tank is kept dark to prevent algae from blocking the gas exchange. It requires a decent amount of flow and should be filtered mechanically before entering this sand bed.
Good luck!
walleyebum
01/25/2015, 04:46 PM
I don't have the best flow and seem to have some dead spots. I plan on getting the mp60s in a couple months when they plan to drop the price.
greaps
01/25/2015, 04:53 PM
I don't have the best flow and seem to have some dead spots. I plan on getting the mp60s in a couple months when they plan to drop the price.
Personally I would save yourself like 1000-2000 dollars and get RW20's, nearly the same features, battery back up available ect, fraction of the price, and warrantied for 1 year at reefbreeders.
That flow alone probably wont completely solve the nitrate problems.
Dan_P
01/25/2015, 05:12 PM
How much should I feed my 500 gallon tank with keeping the phosphates and nitrates down? I have a reef octopus super external 6000 skimmer and do water changes every 2 weeks. But the nitrates and phosphates are getting high. Phosphates at 3 and nitrates are at 10. Throughout the week I usually feed twice a day and switch it up between, pellets, flakes, krill, lettuce, and mysis.
Stock list
8 tangs,
5 angels
6 clowns,
6 wrasses,
6 chromis
5 other randoms
There are two aspects. First, figure out what your fish need to eat to be healthy. Then figure what you need to export the waste. Most of the phosphorus and nitrogen in the food is excreted by the fish.
For phosphate reduction, use GFO. You could try carbon dosing or a refugium or all of them. Carbon dosing could help with phosphate reduction. A refugium would help with nitrate reduction. There are many devices for nitrate removal. How big these water purification systems need to be depends on how much food you are giving the fish.
CoralBeauty13
01/25/2015, 08:28 PM
Wheres the pic, stop teasing us !!!!!
walleyebum
01/25/2015, 08:46 PM
:beer:
CoralBeauty13
01/25/2015, 09:13 PM
Super nice tank , wow....
walleyebum
01/25/2015, 09:35 PM
Thanks!
TravelinLight
01/25/2015, 11:14 PM
I wouldn't use to GFO as a main source of phosphate removal due to the cost associated with it. I would resort back to the comment about getting a phosphate remover from a pool store- lanthanum chloride. There is a ton of information on here about it. Also vodka dosing is another great method to combat nitrates.
alton
01/26/2015, 07:21 AM
Add some GSP, Mushrooms, Xenia, and Kenyan Tree's. All cheep and all help with filtration and phosphate control. Sometimes it takes a year to for a tank to mature and settle down
walleyebum
01/26/2015, 08:59 AM
I have used gfo before and it worked it pretty well, but cost way to much. Will have to look into the pool remover.
Mishri
01/26/2015, 09:41 AM
3.0 phosphates seems pretty crazy. If parameters are holding steady and fish are happy/healthy I wouldn't worry unless you plan on adding sps... that wont fly. Everyone seems to strive for perfect ocean conditions, but for much of our livestock, especially fish, they aren't sensitive to some of these parameters.. Nitrates can harm fish, if they get high enough. Even then they can adapt to high nitrates. (Ammonia and Nitrite they generally can't adapt to) Phosphates causes calcification issues and can cause algae blooms.. otherwise non-harmful. Nobody should be striving for either phosphates or nitrates to be 0. should have a little bit of both, like in the .2 range for nitrates, lower for phosphates if doing SPS.
walleyebum
01/26/2015, 11:59 AM
I have softies and some lps just dont want them to die
anbosu
01/26/2015, 12:28 PM
Is it possible you have a bad phosphates test kit? I would expect to see a ton of algae with that level, and your tank looks pretty clean.
Mishri
01/26/2015, 12:34 PM
Your nitrates are fine, you can do up to 40ppm with LPS.
Infact, your corals would probably be happiest at about 25ppm on nitrate.
Don't worry about phosphates unless you have algea problems, then you can run phosban or something like that.
if your corals look like they are struggling then trying to get phosphates down to .25ppm might help.
Might want to get rid of the pellet food or anything that would be adding phosphate. the frozen stuff rinse first.
Compliance
01/26/2015, 12:45 PM
Have you looked into making your own 'reef' food?
Youre feeding commercially made fish food which likely has phosphates out the wazoo....
Plenty of reciepes around but basically a mix of fish/shellfish from the grocery store, nori, I use golden pearls and selcon in the mix. Blend, put into ziplocs and freeze.
Feed it less frequently - without anthias or other fish that need to eat very often, daily or even every other day should help.
All the other suggestions on treating the symptoms are good - but addressing the source is the key...
Mishri
01/26/2015, 12:47 PM
oh.. and here is a cool article on phosphates...
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/
walleyebum
01/26/2015, 01:13 PM
What I feed them is the New Life Spectrum Marine Fish Formula pellets, Tetra JumboKrill, NutriDiet™ Marine Flakes. Do they have high phosphates?
anbosu
01/26/2015, 01:47 PM
All food has phosphate in it. As long as it's all being eaten it doesn't really matter too much.
walleyebum
01/26/2015, 03:39 PM
I feed them in small portions and make sure they can consume all the food before I place more in.
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