Tank is a disasterous death trap...sigh

Alright... I have a 16 gallon tank with an over head filter on it and one maxi jet power head. I have been dealing with this thing since about May, so details are sketchy... I had assembled this tank almost a year ago and have had fish die in it and then other fish getting sick. At one point I used melafix and pimafix to successfully treat a fish. I had put carbon in the filter to hopefully remove the medicine (i am not really confident that carbon in this type of filter is effective) and did water changes as well. I had read up on the medications and found an article that says that they work a little too well and end up killing bacteria in the tank...I read this article before I had used it but hoped for the best.

The issue now is skyrocketing NITRATES! I had some tiger conch snails die on me, so that caused the alarm. I have added live rock... removed some, just to humor a friend's theory that I had too much... did a complete water change... tests were good initially but subsequently the nitrates have risen back to 20ppm. I have been doing 4 to 5 gallon water changes and cleaning the filtration thoroughly. I have some stress zyme that I may add to put some bacteria back into the system but not sure what to do with this thing. I have a ball of chaeto in there and I am letting algae grow to hopefully work on these nitrates. This tank does not have much algae growth as my lights aren't anything special.

I currently have no carbon in the filter.

Any suggestions?

 

Whats currently living in your tank?
The nitrates do indicate you have bacteria processing waste... What is making it?
Whats that filtration doing? When its not holding carbon to suck up those meds... Are you running some kinda Physical / biological / chemical in it?

Up a year and probs last few months? Whats it look like?
Im thinking the live rock could only take up swiming room and affect flow... So wouldnt too much rock only increase the waters quality???

 

Nothing living in the tank other than what is in the sand and LR... I removed the CUC and fish when the CUC started dying off ... The overhead filter has two filter mat things... no carbon or bio stuff

Yeah... the tank was having no problems and didn't have much live rock, but I think it was sufficient (maybe not)...then when the snails started dying... I tested the water and nitrates were really high... I added the extra LR to help cure the problem.

I had just mentioned the theory of my friend...I didn't think that was the issue... I have since removed a lot of that rock just to clear up some room for water flow... there was A LOT... lol, almost filled the tank

I think there is plenty of LR in there now but it is not stacked so high that it will impede water flow.

I do not have a deep sand bed for the fact that I had some pistol shrimp in there... I just don't know if the melafix/ pimafix combo did something to the filtration or the LR and Sand weren't enough to handle a bio load. Should have been... I had the sand and one piece of the LR in a 6 gallon prior and never had issues.

The issue I am having doesn't match what the API products supposedly do but that is the only theory that I can think of... and I can't find the write up that I am referring to to confirm right now.

 

your nitrates arent that bad. In a 16g tank a water change would fix that easily

just so you are aware, nitrates arent really deadly to fish, and most soft corals feed on in them.

 

something is dying off. and your bacteria is processing that giving you the extremly high nitrates. that of you have a dead something in the tank that is feeding the bacteria. Overhead filter? as in one of those old eclipse systems or a pack pack style that hangs on the back? when was the last time you changed all pads and filter media in it?

Nitrates are removed in only a few ways.

1. Bacteria in the system process it into nitrogen and it is expelled thru the surface. This bacteria need water that is devoid of Oxygen to survive. they are normally found in the deep crevaces of the rock, or in a device specifically designed to provide a place for them such as a Denitrator coil or sulfur denitrator.
2. by Macro algae such as Chaeto, Calerpa and others that filter this out of the water. they use this in addition to photosynthesis to grow.
3. water changes. these just dilute the concentrations of the NItrates, and IMHO, not the best way to do things.

I personally use method 1 and am starting to dabble in method 2 as I have seen success from others in my local club. I dont do method 3.

now some questions.
1. have you removed the rock to make sure you dont have anythign dead in there?
2. removed any lingering detritus sitting on the substrate or in the substrate?

If not, I would remove the rock completely. give it a very good rinse in salt water to make sure it is not causeing the skipe due to a dieoff. I would vaccuum the sand really well and change at leat 90% of the water. after that, I would sit and wait and watch the water in a week or 5 days. see what happens. if the nitrates go back thru the roof, I would seriously consider drying that rock out and then cooking it for a period of weeks.

all in all, something in there is dead or dying. you need to get that out or you will see this issue. Small tanks only need minute changes to set off a hell storm.

best of luck to you.

 

I did a 4 gallon water change then tested and got 20ppm... I have been doing water changes every couple of weeks... to include a 99.9 percent water change. Well... I have been seeing people's testing results and becoming aware that nitrates aren't that bad for fish but when it comes to my clean up crew... well they die and they cost money too...lol plus they are a must if you ask me

 

I have seen no mention of you using RO water? If your using tap water that is your problem.

 

I can't imagine what would be dying off in my tank...but okay

The overhead filter is over the top of the back of the tank... it has two tiers... the water is pumped to the top on the left side and dispersed to a tray with holes in it and trickles down through filter material and then down to the bottom, where there is another filter pad and on the far right end there is a small container area where you can put bio material. There is a drain on the right side where the water returns to the display. The filter is the length of the aquarium.

Cleaned the filter material on the 7th of august... it is pretty new... cant find where I changed it out in my log. There is no media in there.

I removed the rock as stated before... to improve water flow... there is nothing dead as in fish, crab or shrimp that I ever put in there. Anything that would be dying off would have to be inside the rock... I am not sure which you were getting at.

I do agree about not changing water to improve nitrate levels. I have been doing some water changes to hopefully help whatever is going on because it has been a while.

Also, back to the LR that was removed... I had the Nitrate problem before putting all the extra rock in there.

 

Was that from the hip? j/k lol... I have a 5 stage BRS RO/DI system and 4 other tanks that test 0 for nitrates... lol

Technically, yes I am using tap water and it goes in to the RO/DI filter system with a TDS of around 47 and comes out with a TDS of 0

 

The nitrates can only be coming from one of a few places the rock the sand, over feeding ,something dead or your filter.
the filter your talking about is no more than a trickle wet dry filter just on top of the tank in stead of under it, and this type of filter is known for being a nitrate factory, with that being said the other places they could be coming from would be the rock or sand and could be leaching out into the water, but to get a better idea of what is going on we need more info. then you are giving us like how often you do regular water changes, all water tests, critters in the tank what you feed and if your feeding and any thing else your dumping in the tank like chemicals . and a picture might help to.