Battle strategies for nitrates

I have a 29 gallon FOWLR and some blue kneed crabs and snails.

I have slowly through water changes and diligence pushed my nitrates from 30+ down to about 10. over the course of a week it rises above 10 and then each sunday, I change the water and it goes back down to 10. I want some way to get and stay down to zero so I can start getting corals. The cause of my high nitrates was most likely overfeeding. We now feed 2 clowns and 2 damsels a half cube of frozen mysis shrimp each day.

I have heard differing strategies, everything from the vodka method, to phosban reactors, macro corals, to denitrifing bacteria.

Dollar for dollar, what is going to be the best option ? It would be nice if It looked okay as well, or could be concealed by some live rock.

 

1/2 a cube is alot for that fish load. Give us more details, all your current stat levels, temp, amount of time you keep your tank lit, and your current type of filtration. Off the top of my head & fairly newb expereince macros in the fuge will do wonders on nitrates. Although they get mixed reviews a algae scrubber will also really lower nitrates, or well at least absrob them.

 

it used to be a half a cube for just the two clowns ! ;D

tank is lit about 12 hours per day
levels:
ph 8.2
sg 1.024~1.025 right in the middle
ammonia~ 0
nitrates ~10ppm
temp = 76 F
tank set up for 6~7 months

 

How much LR do you have in there? How much sand? Bare bottom?

What kind of filtration you have on there? Skimmer? Sump? Carbon? Chemipure? etc?

 

I think we have around 30 lbs LR.

about 2 inches of sand on the entire bottom of the tank

filtration at the moment is nothing but the Live rock

care to recommend a protein skimmer ?

 

A DSB will work wonders for your trates. If you add a fuge, make sure to have atleast 4 inches of sugar grain sand. Also macroalgea like chaeto, but a DSB is less (no) maintenance.

 

what is a DSB ? sorry some of the lingo I do not fully know yet.

 

Deep Sand Bed

Also, just to let you know, there's a new feature for 3Reef that allows you to scroll the mouse pointer over acronyms (like DSB) and a ? sign will show up and then the definition shortly after.

Try it! It's pretty fun! LOL DSB LFS ;D

HTH

 

So what I need is a fuge of some sort, and a bunch of sand, say 4 or 5 inches. As well as some macro algae ?

Thanks for the recommendation on a DSB, never heard of that before.

 

I would say it's a good idea, research them a bit on here. You'll find tons of info all over the forums.

Specifically Here:
Refugium - 3reef Forums

And,
http://www.3reef.com/forums/refugium/refugium-q-89247.html

HTH