help with nitrates

Its been running about 9 weeks
30 gallon...30 lbs Live rock, 30 lbs live sand, 1 Ocillaris Clown, 1 lubbocks wrasse and a 1 Purple Flame...as well as a couple of pepperment shrimp, 2 "doctor" shrimp, 3 small hermits, 2 Emarald crabs, 1 Orange linkia star fish, 1 Sand sifting star fish, 2 turban snails, 4 medium snails, 20 tiny common cleaning snails,and a Green Bubble Tip....1 Neon Green Open Brain, 2 Deep ocean neon green candy cane frags, 2 green star polop frags, 1 blue mushroom, 1 green with orange center zoa frag, 1 nuclear green zoa frag, and a nice cluster of Chaeto....150 watt coralife Metal halide, T8 Compact Floresant deep blue daylite and 2x4 LED Lunar...all on a nice aquatic timer...oh, and a powerhead and a biowheel filter
I only feed once a day now, I was feeding toooo much.
Im trying to post some picture from bucket...but having some difficulty.:-/
Thanx for your response.

 

Since your cycle can last 12 weeks+ and you have dumped in all the livestock it is no wonder your nitrates are high, IMO. Time will probably help too since your probably still cycling.

 

Sorry to say but 9 week old tanks should not have that much livestock. I would imagine your Starfishes are starving. I will also speculate that 100% of your problems with Nitrate, Algae, and Ammonia is related to too much too fast.
I would return the BTA for sure

J

 

Good golly ms.molly!!! That is a lot for a 9wk old tank. why do you have a biowheel? whats in it? Only 1 powerhead? what size? On my 40G I had a maxijet 900 at each end.
Guarantee that your starfishes are starving as we speak. I don't mean to sound ruff...but this hobby, as you know, is not cheap, so slow is best. Plus these fish and corals don't exactly swim in net when being captured, so I beleive that we owe it to them to offer them the best we can. In a 30G tank you will see things go south fast, no room for error.
IMO...take back the starfishes and the anemone, make your water changes larger...say 7 to 10G every 2 weeks. I did 7Gweekly on my 40G, that's just me. Another question...were you doing water chages while cycling?

 

just to give you an idea i have a 44 gal been running 8 months. i still only have 2 clowns, 1 pep shrimp, 4 hermits,firefish,scooter dragonette, and a frog spawn coral that i got 2 days ago,nothing has ever been killed in the process of setting my tank up, going slow is the best thing to do. and ALOT of flow i got around 1800 gph flowing in my tank and that is mostly circulation in the tank, go buy a couple koralia powerheads.

 

Well, Its been over a week and all is better. Protein skimmer now working (thanx 2 U all)
Nitrates 10 / nitrites 0 / ph 8.2 / amonia 0. Temp @77 and salinity @ 1.026. The GBT looks VERY healthy....and is finnally found a place to stay put it seems.
My starfish are still alive..and seem active and feeding according to their biology.
I do not see any signs of distress with any of the other livestock. I am testing daily and watching closely. And changing 7 gallons instead of 5 (Thanx Kimmy) That seemed to help considerably....Well thats all for now.
still trying to post some pictures : (
Thanx again.

 

Good to hear. Keep us posted, with pics of course;D

 

I hate nitrates and have tried everything to reduce mine, unfortunately i just have to perserver with water changes!
My LFS did stock something on an experimental and temp basis to get customer feedback, its some kind of enzyme that works with your live rock to eliminate nitrates. Apprently the feedback was brilliant and they are going to restock, but the company that supplys it needs a minimum order so they are waiting for their tank stock to go down.

When they do get it in, i will try it, and report back to you all with its name and if its worked or not