Protein Skimmers?

[kgerbus]

I have a nitrate problem in an established 90g tank. I have heard a protein skimmer will help. I was thinking of the Turboflotor Multi with needle wheel or the Coralife Super Skimmer. Are these good? I am open to other suggestions.

[otterpop510]

depends on your price range, perhaps if you haven't looked at ASM or Euroreefs, they are considered a relatively good price for quality equipment that you can 'set and forget'... obviously there are more expensive ones like deltec, bubble king, h&s, etc..

[robsmith32]

do you have a sump? sump based skimmers will skim circles around hang on's.
you'll find a lot of passionate oppinions here.
deltec and h&s have a great rep. bk is probably not going to be beat probably a bit much for a 90 gallon.
Aqua c's taken a rep hit as of late, but can skim if get adjustments tweaked just right and have just the right barometric pressure. MRC's are good, ASM are great for price and efficiency if appropriately installed.
But with the 2 you're asking about, sounds like will need to be hang on tank?

[Serioussnaps]

If you have a sump--------look at the ASM G3's or
G4's The turboflotor is a pain in the butt.Dont know about corallife.

[Roland Jacques]

A skimmer well help with your nitrates but probably not as much as you want. You have to look at you entire set up. Tank water flow, type of filter.................

As far as skimmers, depends on you budget. The best value under $200 IMO is octopus 2000 NW. But it is an in sump model, its big and requires a big sump, its very easy to use (put it in and plug it in) . Not as good as ASM G4 and the G4 does not have to go in your sump. its not as easy to use but that can be a good thing for a hobbiest (you can play with adjustments.)

Roland

[MayoBoy]

I'm having an ongoing nitrate problem as well. I just switched from a Remora to a G3. I'll let you know how it goes.

[redboxer13]

Updates.....

[kgerbus]

My 90 has 150lbs of live rock, 6 hermit crabs, 10 snails, 1 small lobster, 1 decent size anemone, some macroalgae.
Some history here-I bought the tank 3 weeks ago from a lady moving across country. She had the tank for 1 year. She had 11 fish until 3 months ago when some sort of bacteria crashed her tank and all the fish died. However, everything listed above survived. Note- I bought the macroalgae 1 week ago. The sand was very dirty and nitrates were high so I did a large water change. No change in nitrate level. I did another large water change but this time I moved all the rocks around to clean under them. This time not only do I have no change in nitrates (above 200ppm) but nitrites were .5 and Ammonia was .25. The only other things I can think of are, I run a wet/dry system and the lights are on for about 5 hours a day, I feed the anemone 2x-week with a syringe dose of 2.5 ml, and I have not fed the live rock in 2 weeks. I know this is a lot of info but any suggestions would help. I would like to buy fish soon! However I don’t want to kill them! Iam looking for an in the sump skimmer for around 200-250 range.

[pvtschultz]

Try another Nitrate test kit? That is really high. Too high for anemones that I have ever heard of, it should be dead...

Using RO/DI water should/will bring down the 'trates faster, but I would do 5-10 gallon water changes every other day or so for about the next month. That will bring them down a bit slower than they are going. You don't have to feed anything in that tank but the anemone and maybe a weekly treat for the seafood delight, err...I mean lobster.

Oh, live rock needs no feeding. With that much live rock you might also consider removing the media in your wet/dry during the next month as well. That is a great source of nitrates. W/D's work great, too good to be exact and break down the ammonia to nitrite and etc. For that reason, the LR and macro doesn't get a change to use it up.

How's that sound?

ETA: I wouldn't even consider adding a fish until you have held the 'trates below 25 ppm for at least a month. Sounds harsh and depressing, but trust me and the others, you can learn from our mistakes.

[Roland Jacques]

Your tank has not been set up long enough to have created that much nitrate. Check your testing method.

So you moved the tank to your house 3 weeks ago.
Also check your source of new water was good RO DI (nitrate free)?

You say the sand was dirty? Is it detritus or brown diatom algae?
If its detritus you may need better water movement.

You just moved the tank you disrupted the tank, and your going to have some nitrification cycling to go though. Nitrites Ammonia & nitrates but you should not still be having Ammonia. Let the tank just run a few weeks without doing all these water changes.

You also mentioned a wet dry filter, the bio balls should be removed once your tank is stable a little at a time (they are nitrate balls)

wait on the fish get a skimmer first.

You also said you feed your rock, with what????? in all my years iv'e never fed my rock, but i did have a pet rock, i cant find it anymore maybe it died .

Hobby Experience: 10 years

[kgerbus]

I have taken the water to three different stores and they all have attained the same results as I have. What could be causing the nitrates to be so high? And could it have killed all the previous owners fish?

[pvtschultz]

Hard to speculate. I would go with small/frequent water changes to bring the conditions in spec. Probably start with 10 gallon water changes every other day. It is going to take a lot of salt, but will save the inverts you have now. You might also want to vacuum all the sand in the tank to clean up any ditritus. If it has more than 2-3 inches of sand on the bottom, be very wary, there could be toxic sulfur dioxide gas build-up and can kill critters. Blowing off the LR by waving your hand over it to remove sediment will help too. You basically want to do a major spring cleaning, but not change things very rapidly.

So:
-Water change every other day (~10 gallons)
-Dust off all LR prior to WC to stir up sediment
-Vacuum sand/crushed coral to remove sediment (only for shallow sand beds)
-no feeding, anemone every 7-10 days unless adverse side affects.

I would mix up the water a day before the water change. If you have a means of mechanical filtration, go to Walmart and get a big bag of polyester fibers (in the fabric area) and use as filter floss (only $2).

Oh, and keep us updated in this thread. That way we can keep track of the progress and help you out.

[Roland Jacques]

it takes a lot more than 3 weeks to get nitrates any where near that high.

when you move the tank did you use the old water or was it newly mixed water?

[Roland Jacques]

If you just moved the tank you should have already done a major cleaning.

If you are really sure about your readings. I totally disagree with the small water changes. I would do a 100% water change. Take all your critters out put them in a small tank or a cooler with a pump and heater. It will take way to long to get your nitrates down by doing small changes. You would have to do like 30 ten gallon water changes to get it down to 10 ppm. Been their done that, don’t go that route.

I still suspect your water source or the testing. but you still haven’t said anything about your water source when you moved the tank.

[kgerbus]

When I moved the tank I saved about 95% of the existing water. The new water I'm putting in is from the tap and I believe there may be some nitrates coming from that. However, I do use something called Prime to help with chlorine. What kind of reasonably priced filter should I get to filter the tap water? After a 100% water change, how long do I wait to put the anemone back in?

[Roland Jacques]

24 hours is plenty, you can put it back in sooner if you need to. i mix my water the day before i need it, i also run it though carbon durring that time. but most people use it the same day within hours of mixing it. just acklamate your animals to the new water the same way you would if you just bought them. get the temp and ph right before you move your animals back in.

have you tested your tap water?

this is the best value R/O filter that i have found. thier are some cheeper that will do the job but the defferance is $20 so i would go with this one. it has all the good parts that every one likes and is still cheep. but every one has a opinion about R/O filters and you will hear a lot of them here when you ask
http://cgi.ebay.com/AQUARIUM-2-110GPD-RO-2DI-REVERSE-OSMOSIS-water-system_W0QQitemZ7754300093QQcategoryZ20756QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[pvtschultz]

If you take that anemone from 200 ppm NO3 to 10 ppm NO3 you are probably going to kill it. You will need to aclimate it over a long period of time which I don't think that yourfishman mentioned real well. I acclimate my fish for 4-6 hours when coming from a LFS that uses 1.015-1.020 SG in their tanks. I would do the same for the anemone. Depending on how big the tub is that you are using now, you should add water at a fast drip, almost dribble. I like to start with the specimine in gallon of tank water. Start the drip. When the water gets up to 1.5-2 gallons, I remove the extra water and continue. After doing that about 3-4 times the critter will be slowly acclimated to different water conditions. Make sure the water temp in the bucket stays above 78 or so, what ever your tank water is, that is the hard part. Anemones are quite sensitive to rapid and drastic changes in water quality so beware.

Oh, it you mix your water for 24 hours, you won't need to add that chlorine stuff either. I do mix mine for 24 hours and that RO/DI filter that was mentioned by yourfishman is a good unit, I have been using mine for two years now with absolutely no complaints.