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Kazza24
04/21/2006, 07:09 AM
Me and my husband are new to this hobby and we need some help.
We have a 5 ft, 600 litre tank with a 4 foot sump.
We have had live rock for over 7 weeks now and the nitrates are still at the highest level on the chart.We purchased a brand new sera test kit and ammonia is reading at 1.
Nitrates are at 0 though.
We do a weekly 10% water change with natural sea water from the LFS and blow any debris off the rock with a powerhead weekly.
I am also changing all the filter wool weekly in both the drop off chamber and the sump as it is getting dirty very quickly.
Ph is reading at 8.2 -8.3 with a temp between 25 -27 Celcius.
Our skimmer is also pulling out an inch of gunk each week.
We also use RO water to replace water lost by evaporation.
Salt water is reading at 1.025.
Am I changing the wool too frequently?
Am I being impatient?
What am I doing wrong?

One thing we didn't do when we put the live rock in was to clean it. It was just dumped in the tank after purhchase due to an unexpected emergency. We had to get the live rock in the tank quickly and rush off so it didn't die too much on us. The rock would have been out of water for around 1 and half hours.
Any advice would be appreciated

huzen
04/21/2006, 07:27 AM
Is it nitrates or nitrites that are off the scale?

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=595109
Check out that thread for eliminating nitrates but if its nitrates im not sure what it is. Maybe as its a big tank its still cycling?

r0bin
04/21/2006, 07:28 AM
An inch of gunk a week isnt much. What type of skimmer do you have?
Also the filter wool will cause higher nitrates as is accumulates debri. Basically when wool collects stuff its still "in your water" just in a diff. place. Your filter wool is part of your problem.

huzen
04/21/2006, 07:30 AM
Doh! I ment nitrites instead of nitrates the second time after the link

Kazza24
04/21/2006, 07:41 AM
Thanks for your advice.
I change the filter wool weekly. I will start changing it twice a week. I was only advised weekly by the LFS.
I meant nitites are 0 sorry spelling error
I have an aquamedic turboflotor multi sl skimmer
It was the most expensive one the LFS sold.

XeniaMania
04/21/2006, 07:53 AM
First of all, yes, your tank is still cycling. Right now, your routine is a "Maintenance" routine which is good AFTER your tank is done cycling. You don't mention the source of your rocks, and if they were cured or not. Right now it's not necessary to do water changes as you want to keep Ammonia and Nitrite in your system to feed the bacteria so your tank will cycle faster, this is one reason why it's been 7 weeks and you still have no nitrate, incidentally, the bacteria Nitrobacter is slower growing than Nitrosoma. The rate you're replacing the wool is fine, it's a good practice to keep up. Your skimmer production sounds a tad big low for me, however, I'm also assuming this is not a stocked tank? What type of skimmer are you running? Perhapse it may be running too dry. HTH

Kazza24
04/21/2006, 08:02 PM
The rock was uncured and as I stated above I am running a aquamedic turboflotor Multi SL skimmer.
I am a little confused as to what to do now from what has been said:
Do I keep changing the filter wool weekly?
Do I stop doing water changes until the cycle has finished?
The reason I was doing water changes is because I have some small coral growing on some of the rocks which came on the live rock which I didn't want dying.
I don't have any stock in the tank only some snails that came in with the live rock.
I also thought that by changing the filter wool weekly was I taking some of the bacteria away that may have grown on the wool?
What did you mean by perhaps the skimmer was running too dry?

asca
04/21/2006, 08:10 PM
Stop doingwater changes for now but keep it up AFTER your completely cycled.

Do continue to change the wool

Running your skimmer a little wetter(more froth from the bubbles) you would pull more gunk out But you probably don't have too much gunk yet

Good Luck

XeniaMania
04/21/2006, 08:24 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7223549#post7223549 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kazza24
The rock was uncured and as I stated above I am running a aquamedic turboflotor Multi SL skimmer.
I am a little confused as to what to do now from what has been said:
Do I keep changing the filter wool weekly?
Do I stop doing water changes until the cycle has finished?
The reason I was doing water changes is because I have some small coral growing on some of the rocks which came on the live rock which I didn't want dying.
I don't have any stock in the tank only some snails that came in with the live rock.
I also thought that by changing the filter wool weekly was I taking some of the bacteria away that may have grown on the wool?
What did you mean by perhaps the skimmer was running too dry?
Sorry, didn't read the uncured part. You'll need to let the system run its course.
Yes keep changing the wool, it's a good habit and it also keeps the bacteria on the rocks.
You can do water changes if you'd like to keep the hitchhikers alive, but it will draw out the cycling process.
If the multi is similar to the original Turboflotor, there are 2 knobs to adjust the water level within the skimmer. Close them a bit so the water level's higher so the skimmate you get is watery and greenish brown. Later on once you start stocking more heavily, you can lower the water level and still get thick brown skimmate.

bertoni
04/21/2006, 08:29 PM
Hmm, 7 weeks is a long time. How has the ammonia level changes over time? For now, I'd just ignore the nitrate level. It's far less important than the ammonia, IMO.

Assuming the test kit is correct, the ammonia isn't all that high, but I'd do some water changes now and then, if I had the time and energy. That might help save some animals on the live rock.

XeniaMania
04/21/2006, 08:36 PM
Actually Mr Bertoni, the first Nitrate was a typo, it's Nitrite, with Nitrates at 0

Kazza24
04/21/2006, 11:25 PM
Thanks xenia master for your thoughts.
We actually don't have the 2 knobs in as the LFS told us to take them out. I will put them in as you suggested and that might do the trick.
Just to verify about what I said in the original post as I made a spelling error.
Ammonia is at 1, Nitrites are actually at 0.1 and Nitrates are at above 40.
To be honest we never checked the ammonia levels regularly only the nitrates as we assumed the ammonia would be high and we just wanted to check the nitrates to know when the cycle had almost finished. By doing the water changes we have obviously prolonged the cycle time so I guess I will just have to be patient now. I'd like to thank every one who has input their thoughts.

bertoni
04/22/2006, 02:07 AM
I doubt that the issue is water changes. I am somewhat skeptical about the test kit, though.

Kazza24
04/22/2006, 02:20 AM
We bought a brand new sera test kit box for marine which does ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,phosphate,calcium,copper and ph tests.
I am going to the LFS shop tomorrow so i will take some water for them to test for me.I actually did the Nitrate test twice and again with an older Nitrate test kit which gave the same results.
We also blow off any debris (mainly dust) on the rock weekly with a powerhead as stated in the original post.
Could I have stirred up the sand or caused other problems?

bertoni
04/22/2006, 02:23 AM
I don't think so. Something odd is afoot, I think. My guesses would be either the rock had an unusual amount of life on it that is dying, or the test kit is bad, but there are other possibilities.

XeniaMania
04/22/2006, 03:55 AM
Insufficient circulation could increase curing time. But yea, see what the store says. I usually run the knob taken off as well when I had a Turboflotor. Blowing the sand regularly helps prevent it from becoming a nutrient sink so I'd say that's a good thing..:)

Recife
04/22/2006, 11:32 AM
I think this is what's happening:
The tank has gone from the first phase of the cycle and has a good bacteria colony to break down all the ammonia and that explains the nitrites.
However, there's still stuff dying on the rock, but you can't notice the ammonia because the bacteria colony is breaking it immeditately into nitrites. That is creating a huge amount of nitrites that the nitrite breaking bacteria can't handle yet. The colony will grow eventually and your nitrites will come down.
The only way I can think of to help speed the process is to watch the tank closely and siphon out anything that looks like it's dying, like the "cobwebs".

Why is this happening? Dunno, but maybe because you didn't clean the rock initially and the die off is probably bigger than in the average cycle.

Kazza24
04/23/2006, 03:51 AM
Went to the LFS today and the ammonia was 0, Nitrite was 0 and Nitrate was 20. I think the test kits we have bought were not as accurate. We therefore bought better ones.
So the cycle has finished so we bought 6 blue/green chromis to start with. We have done another water change and took out the filter wool so the bacteria can develop in the rock to reduce the nitrate even further.
Thanks to all for your help

bertoni
04/23/2006, 12:58 PM
Sounds good! Now the number make sense.

reefnetworth
04/23/2006, 01:32 PM
what about plants in sump? more plants less nitrates.

Kazza24
04/24/2006, 06:19 AM
I had thought of macro aglae in sump as I do have some on the live rock in the tank growing. Do you have to use lights in the sump if you want to grow plants?

bertoni
04/24/2006, 03:59 PM
Yes, you'll need to light the sump area. Also, you want baffles to keep the alga out of the return pump, etc.

rustybucket145
04/24/2006, 04:29 PM
You need to get some Chaeto growing in your sump if possible. It grows great using a power compact flood light from Home Depot or Lowes. Bulb costs $7 and fixture (regular screw-in bulb socket) is less than $1. This Chaeto will help to 'stabilize' your system and give your amiphods and copepods a launching ground for their breeding activities.