Need Advise Reef Tank Nitrates Rising w/ Water Changes Regulary

[saltman1]

Hey all, I have a 4 month old mixed reef 144G with 30 G sump. With about 25 corals all looks well, even the SPS have moderate polyp ext. However I have noticed with water Changes every 2 weeks lately the nitrates have been hovering around 10PPM now this week up to 15/20 after doing a WC 2 days ago. Now Let me give you some details about the tank.

144G mixed reef
30 gallon sump
R/O water used
Euro Reef CS6-2
15W UV Sterilizer
200 lbs LR

Fish List:
1 Blue Hippo Tang
1 Maroon Clown
1 Jaw Fish
1 S Anthias

Clean Up:

100 Sm Blue Hermit
20 Snails Some Large/Medium
4 Peppermint Shrimp
1 Blood Shrimp
1 Cleaner
1 Emerald Crab


Feeding: 1 to 2 square of frown mysis shrimp per day. Some of our corals are fed with these as well. Sun Polps, Brains Etc.

So are we feeding too much, should I go to a once everyother day feeding schedule. I am getting into SPS and want the Water Quality to get a bit better.

Water Changes are 20 G every 2 weeks...lets hear some suggestions

[saltman1]

Anyone??

[XeniaMania]

I use denitrate with great success. Simply get a bottle, drill small holes in the bottom, small enough so the media doesn't flow out, and drill a hole in the cap. Then run a airline tube into it, start a siphon, and the water coming out of the bottle tests 5mg/l less than the tank water. You could also use a refugium to help absorb and control the nitrates. Cutting down feeding to every other day could help, but for me, cut my fish down to 2, with 2 shrimps, and 3 crabs, my nitrates have gone down from 50mg/l to less than 10mg/l within 2 weeks after installing my denitrate bottle. My corals look better than ever, so definitely keep the nitrates down, hope this helps.

[ewatson]

I think that you may be overfeeding the tank....I have over twice the amount of fish and I typically feed about 1/3 to 1/2 a square a day and all my fish are happy.

[OnTheReef]

I thaw the mysis cubes in RO water and rinse them in a net with more RO water. I then place them in a jar with a little tank water and feed them to the tank critters with a turkey baster. When everybody stops gobbling, I net any remaining mysis out of the tank.

[XeniaMania]

Oh yeah, another interesting tidbit, if you throw the entire cube in without thawing it out first, that could be your nitrate source too. As I've read, the "juice" from those cubes are rocket fuel for hair algae growth, most likely because it just goes into the water and decomposes into ammonia quickly.

[lemonhead]

try larger water changes (20-25%) or do them once a week

[Serioussnaps]

First, that is way to many crabs in there. They metabolize too ya know. Do you have a refugium? If you dont, get one. Put a DSB in there with some macroalgae under some lighting. Xenia is a natural way. Its like algae coral. It consumes the nutrients algae need and you can frag it and sell it. Test your RO water and make sure its nitrate free and test it after you make your salt mix to make sure your not adding nitrates. This could be why your nitrates went up after a water change. UV sterilizer, why? Are you dumping additives in the tank? Finally, it sounds like overfeeding is the likely culprit here. Those sunpolyps need a dump load of feeding to be successful and if you are keepign them successfully you are dumping food in there. I had to get rid of my sun polyps( much to my dismay) but my nitrate and phosphate levels dropped significantly once i was only feeding fish and a little to the other coral occassionally. SUn polyps-----alot of food-----and great water quality-------very hard to duplicate in a closed aquaria environment