Help me and my nitrates!

Mr._Bond

As others have written you just need to clean any mechanical filters more often. I do mine once per week and haven't had a problem

John

 

Hey guys!!! About the bio-ball removal...

Can I, with my setup, remove my bio balls? I'd like to if I can, I have about a hundred of them in my wet/dry...but do I have enought live rock to handle my tank? and does sand count?

please advise...

thanks all

Scoffer

 

Thanks everybody for the great advice!! Karma to everyone!! I checked after my water change and the levels were at about 20 ppm now, which isn't perfect, but much better. I think that may be my problem is the filters not being cleaned enough as when I cleaned the overflow box filter it was pretty bad and I had just cleaned it a couple weeks back.
Anyway, I want to second Scoffers question for me too about removing the bio balls. I don't think I have enough live rock for the biological filtration, but have had several people mention removing the bioballs. My wet dry filter is the only mechanical filter I have, so don't want to take it out of the loop yet (unless there are suggestions on what to do with it). Any help, and/or advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

I would not use any filter media at all. I don't anyway. How many pouns of live rock do you have? If you have 1-2lbs per gallon then you can remove the bio-balls with no problems. Slowly of course. I ran a wet/dry for the first 5 months and now use a DIY refugium instead. I removed the bio-balls in my wet/dry when I used it.

Removing the filter media will resolve a lot of the nitrate problems especially if you are only cleaning them every 3 weeks.

Just my .02

Todd

 

does the sand count too? or only live rock? I barely have 1lb per gallon of rock , but plenty if I count the sand...

Scoffer

 

As Poppy mentioned, remove the bioballs a little at a time. You can use the media in the wet/dry as your mechanical filter as long as it is cleaned at least once a week, otherwise you are building a little nitrate farm in the wet/dry.

I would add some more rock if you do not have a pound of rock per gallon of water. You could just add some baserock and within not too long it will become liverock. The idea is to switch the bacteria colonization onto the live rock and out of the filter. The sand helps but will not do the job that the liverock does because of the porousness of the rock.

If you are using a skimmer you don't really need any mechanical filtration unless you have a very large amount of fish in the tank. I only use my cannister filter when I am blowing debris off the rocks and creating a lot of muck in the water column and then only for a few hours to help remove the debris in the water.

You can use the filter if you feel that there is an inordinate amount of solids in the water but I would suggest using only the sponge type media, floss, or the bags. I would also suggest that if you are using charcoal to place it in the wet/dry for a day or two each month and then remove it. Then use a fresh bag the next time. It isn't necessary to have charcoal in the tank all the time unless you have a chemical imbalance (copper, other metals or medicine ) that you are trying to alleviate.

Part of what happens when you filter so much is that the copepods and amphipods that are very necessary for the population of the filter feeding inverts is depleted and you lose the biodiversity that is so much a part of keeping liverock and corals. These pods, corals, and filter feeders benefit from microalgae that is suspended in the water. When you polish the water you remove a large portion of that population and as a result the filter feeders suffer. All of the above are the critters that will keep your tank water very clean the way it is supposed to be kept clean. [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

Drew

[glow=blue,3,300]Disclaimer: These articles reflect the opinions of the author not the sponsor of this program![/glow] ;D

 

The rock is the key for the biological filter. The sand can act as a filter also if it is a deep sand bed. Roughly 4" or deeper. I personally have not tried the deep sand bed in the tank, but do use it in my fuge. Nitrates have remained around 10 since the fuge was installed. If I get over excited and feed to much, the nitrates will go up to as high as 20.

I have 150lbs of live rock in my 75g as an example. I also have roughly 20lbs in my fuge.

Todd

 

I'm going to have to disagree with the suggestion to remove the bioballs. As long as you don't over feed and clean them regulary, they will do more good than harm. It's a common misconception/myth that wet/dry filters with bio-balls are "nitrate factories". If the bio-balls are producing high nitrates, it's more often than not the aquarist's fault.

 

What Amcarrig wrote is quite correct, the term "Nitrate Factory" is just another misnomer. Nitrates come from Nitrites comes from Ammonia comes from decaying organic material. It's a closed loop. Nothing can 'manufacture' Nitrates in an aquarium. Sure if you don't clean often and if you over feed than the bioballs will do their job more efficiently and high Nitates will be the result, but the same could be said of any other component in an aquarium, including DSB's

John

 

Heck I never had to clean any bioballs on any of the wet drys I had... I guess it was because I used a filter pad on the drip tray? On one setup I also injected air into the middle of the balls with an airstone.