New Picture need some opinions & Nitrate High

Ok, just redid my rock work and would love some opinions on it.

PH is at 8.0

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0

Nitrate 80

Water Changes, Changed the filters on the 2 HOB's on the back. Levels don't seem to go down.

I've cut feedings down as well.

 

nitrates are something that will take many, many water changes before you see a big drop in levels. How much of a water change did you do? Also, anytime you mess with rocks you will see a little bit of an increase in your nitrates simply because you are stirring things up

Looks like with your 4 pumps you dont have any deadspaces which is common cause of nitrates, so that is good. Do you have any hermits in there. I see a few snails but what other type of clean up crew do you have.

looks good

 

I did about 15 gallons, then an additional 5 the next day. (45 gallon tank)

Only 3 of them actually work, the 4th went out I just leave it there is it's where my hawkfish calls home.

There are probably 10-15 hermits, I would guess a dozen or more serpent starfish, 1 tiger cowrie, 1 fighting conch and a pencil urchin


*** I wanted to edit in that I also have a pistol shrimp and a sand sifting goby so my sand bed probably is moving a lot more than most tanks***

 

45G, it's a consolidated tank a FOWLR & Reef (thought not much of the reef is left) after I moved.

I put the second HOB on the tank to try to take some of that bioload down.

I had a skimmer on the old tank, but do not have one on this current tank.

 

Skimmers are your best bet to keep nitrates under control as far as i concerned.

 

Agreed, if you're having Nitrate issues, a skimmer would definitely help a lot.

BTW, a HOB won't reduce your bioload; it will, however, increase your Nitrate production as trapped detritus still breaks down, dumping DOCs into your tank. I don't use the filter pads at all in mine for that very reason; I only use it for a place to hang media bags.

Hope this helps.

 

Hopefully you did water changes after you moved all the rock work around. As its been said already, a skimmer will deff help. Even a cheap skimmer will work better than the filters. the filters hold the waste & water still flows through it putting it back into tank. A skimmer at least pulls waste into a seperate chamber. Is 15g your normal weekly water change? If not, then how much were you changing?

 

What kind of media bags do you put in your HOB?

 

15-20G typically twice per month.


WC was prior to rock move as the rock move wasn't necessarily planned on any large scale. I had one rock that I wanted to relocate but had a mini avalanche so I realized that I had an unstable section that needed to be restacked.