water change help

okay yall new to this saltwater thing. i decided to get into by starting a nano tank 1st. i have a 6 gallon fluval edge. i have the off the back filter that came with it. i have modified a coralife light mini to work in the tank. my question though is i have been battling nitrates mainly b/c i feed my fish too much. i know but after keeping freshwater tanks for over 20 yrs ,and not really worrying too much about it, over feeding as proved a hard habit to break. i have 1 maroon clown 2 damsels 1 red scooter blenny or dragonet a emerald crab some hermet crabs and snails. i also have some button polyps and a xenia. okay now back to a question right! my nitrates are btwn 10 and 20 ppm. some one give me a good water change sequence that can get me to 0ppm without shocking anything in my tank:-/

 

I think you have a big bioload for that tank..IMO that's why your params are not perfect. But since you already have things in tere a 2 gallon change once every two days should help.. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

you may either be not fully cycled yet(how long has this tank been set up?). 2nd the tank is seriously overstocked with fish

 

ya beat me to it!

 

You can start by doing 10% water changes every week. Do you have any algae issues??

 

Yea this would be better then every week...

 

First off, if your starting out in salt water, it's best to go bigger then smaller. Small tanks are much more difficult to keep stable then larger ones, but it's good you've had some aquarium experience before.

Secondly, you have way too many fish in there. Salt water holds much less oxygen then fresh water and the live stock are much more sensitive to fluctuations in parameters, tank size and organic compounds in the water. You should at most 1 fish in that sized tank.

This leads into your nitrate problem. An overstocked tank will contribute to excess nitrates. However, 10-20ppm of nitrates aren't that bad, especially for a tank without any hard corals. Now, we need to know if your using RO/DI water or tap water, are you regularly cleaning your filter, do you have any live rock in the tank? Are you running a protein skimmer?

Also, what are your other parameters? Ph, nitrites, ammonia, salinity anything else you test for.

I am much more concerned about the fact you have 4 fish in that sized tank with only a HOB filter. You could have much larger issues with nitrates down the road.

 

weekly water changes will be your best chance. hopefully you are using ro/di water as well not just regular tap water.

you have as much fish as i have in my 29 gallon. your fish are producing a large bioload for a small tank. and the maroon clown will soon out grow the tank. 3 damsels in a tank that size.... i would expect them to fight as they mature.

my suggestion is to do water changes weekly/ and to look into smaller fish for the tank. try a clown goby/royal gramma etc...

 

Are you using ro/di or tap water?

 

okay guys i also have about 8lbs of live rock. no algae to speak of except for some coraline (red) on the live rock in there. all other water parameter are good. tank has been setup for 3mos.