nitrates wont go down

ok, my tank is about a year and a half old, its strictly fish no coral (dont have time to wry about them working full time and school full time). i do bi weekly/ or every 3 week 15%-20% water change. lowered amount of food put in for them, cleaned all sponge filter during every water change. i thought about doing vodka dosing, but dont know much about it.

im using a sump with a tickle down filter going to bio balls and skimmer.

 

Hmm, could be the bio balls. ive read over and over that they are nitrate factories if not taken care of properly. But i have no experience with them so I dont know.

Dont dose vodka unless you absolutely know what you are doing.

 

with regards to the vodka dosing thats just a rumor that i want peoples view on, and as for the bio balls i have 2 pre-filter pads before them and have a carbon filter before them to change carbon every water change to. all pads replace on water change to. so in regards i dont know how the bio balls could be a nitrate factory not much organic matter gets to them.

ps plan on shutting this tank down once my bigger tank is established. only asking cause i dont want the nitrate diff to hurt the fish and the bigger tank is using live sand and live rock. 47 will turn to a dwarf zebra lion fish.

 

Stuff still gets to bio balls no matter how many filters you have before it. Vodka dosing will help but not if you dont get to the source of the matter which I believe is the bio balls.

 

well hopfully in a few months they will be moved to the new tank that is using all live rock and live sand. like i said the 47 will be drained scrubed and filled with live sand and live rock for my dwarf zebra lion fish

 

what are your nitrates currently reading Skyvern?

if it is a fish only tank and you are not going reef, then provided you acclimatize slowly when introducing the fish to the new set up, I do not think you will have any major issues

Steve

 

Bio balls only have surface area for aerobic bacteria,for good filtration you need a low oxygen area for anarobic bacteria (someone please correct me if i'm spelling these names wrong) for denitrification,typically why people ditch the bio balls for rock rubble instead as it provides these areas.

 

the nitrates are reading 40-80 ppm

i can always slowly ween out the bio balls, and put live rock in the but live rock just gets expensive doing 1-2 lbs per gallon
ik you can make your own out of white cement and argonite rock which i have some made but its not rdy its still in the soaking pahse to lower the ph on it.

 

do you have much rock in the aquarium itself Skyvern?

as we do not want you removing your bioballs, if they are your main source of bio filtration

increased water changes in terms of frequency between now and the move would be another method to consider

Steve

 

I guess you have a lot or heavy bioload fish? 40 isn't bad unless you are having nuisance algae problems. 80 is undesirably high, depending on the fish. Their gills are not as permeable to nitrate as it is to ammonia and nitrite, but over time, they will have issues with the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. Some can tolerate high levels of impressive amounts. Fish usually tolerate nitrate better when it rises slowly over time. Old residents seem perfectly fine, while new additions die kind of quickly and unexpectedly. See if you can hit 40 with the water changes alone. I wouldn't worry about getting it lower than that for a FOWLR. Keep the tank as low light as you can and it will help with the presence of nuisance algae.

The term nitrate factory isn't actually an issue of buildup of detritus in the bioballs. The bacteria colonized in a wet/dry filter are able to convert ammonia fast, nitrite fast, and nitrate..... not so much. The nitrate may never reduce in values because it is a very slow conversion. That's why nitrates build over time, even though you never see ammonia or nitrite.