My nitrates or to high

do you change a portion of your bioballs regularly. or rinse them with some salt water? If you dont keep the bioballs somewhat clean, they can be nitrate factories.

 

Also a lot of waste sits in the bottom of the sump and that alone will cause a boost in nitrates. You normally dont want to replace all your bioballs at once, so rinse and replace some. I dont know about the cheato. I thought it needed light.

 

Thx I do see a lot of waste at the bottom of the sump and when I do water changes it's just clear on the side with the skimmer. I'll do another water change and clean it.

 

If ya have a fuge you could add cheato...it will help...it is not the answer to it being that high but will help and be good in the long run....I had nitrate problems and added some in a big rubble ppile in the back corner of my dt and it is 0 now...good luck
Danny

 

You said you're changing to reef for this 55g right?


I've got about 100lbs LR in my 55g. (You can use base rock too). The LR will do its part too with the nitrates.


You can start little mini-cycles when you add LR... so you might want to just add a whole lot of clean dry base rock.

 

Wet/Dry filters are nitrate factories IMO. If you are planning on making this 55 gal a reef tank I would maybe think about a different type of filtration. I made a DIY refugium out of a ten gallon aquarium. A sump and a refugium are not the same thing...A refugium is a seperate tank or "refuge" for you to grow macroalgaes and such. They are also great for copepods/amphropods etc. Macroalgaes export NO3's as well as PO4's as they grow. Read some of the forums titled "refugiums". Denitrators are kind of costly but you can find them all over the web or talk to your LFS

 

I also battled nitrates for a while, my tank was FOLR for a while before I desided to add coral. Since I didn't intend to go in that direction originally nitrates were not my concern. So I was stuck trying to figure out how to drop the nitrates without contant water changes, or buying a denitrator (US Economy makes me poor). I made an ATS scrubber that was fed by my overflow right above my refugium. Nitrates made almost an 80% decrease within less than 2 months. If you are considering a refugium, an ATS scrubber with some chaeto below it will help you significantly. As both are low maintance are cheap to implement.

Hope it helps!
-Gavin

 

well a sump and a refugium arent the same thing, but you could through a ball of cheato in there and get some off the same benefits, but you must have light(not incandescent) for the cheato(it is a plant)

if you dont feel like buying expensive lighting to do the whole thing, you can use a couple of 6500 k compact floursent bulbs. but put the chaeto right under it

 

Good to hear the scrubber dropped the nitrates. You could probably remove the chaeto... if the scrubber is working good, the chaeto won't grow, and it will just trap food and cause it to rot.