What should I do?

I have had a 30 gallon tank for about two years now. I have just added some soft corals like zoos and mushrooms. I have about 50 or so lbs of live rock and sand and crushed coral for a sand base. I run an Marineland 350 power filter and two power heads. My fish include 2 true percula, 1 damsel, 2 Banggai Cardinals, 1 Firefish, 2 Peppermint shrimp, 2 Camel shrimp, 5 snails and A Bristle Sea Star. Do I need a protien skimmer? All water levels are in the ideal range, except the Nitrate level. I cant get it to drop below 80ppm. Any recommendations would be helpful. Thanks

 

A protein skimmer would help with water quality, but isn't absolutely necessary on that size of tank. You could do it with regular water changes. Those nitrates are high. What is your water change schedule like? How much and how often do you feed? How often do you maintain the power filter (they can become nitrate factories, which may be the case here)? Do you vacuum the crushed coral when you do wc's? Detritus can build up in the cc and just like the power filter, they can be the cause of high nitrates. You are heavily stocked so the extra filtration of a skimmer would help.

 

I have been doing a 5 gallon wc daily to try to get the nitrates down. I clean the filters when I do my wc's. I do vacuum the sb as well. try to feed twice a day. (mysis shrimp) 1/2 a cube at a time (according to the fish store.)

 

That's way way too much food IMO. Would feed less than half that if I had your stocking. I have a pair of clowns, unicorn tang, foxface, bi-colour blenny, and a flame angel and I feed about a third to a half a cube at most per day, and some nori every other day or so.

Also if you are feeding frozen are you rinsing it after you thaw it, before adding it to the tank? Have you measured the nitrates (and all params really) in your top off and water change water? You could be adding nutrients there as well. Esp. if you are doing daily water changes and they are still that high. What are you using for a water source? Tap? RO? RO/DI?

 

+1 on the RO/DI water for changes

 

ok i will cut back on food. I feed the corals oyster feast 2 times per week. I dont test the water when I do the w/c. I have soft water. I put the frozen food in a small cup of tank water to thaw, then dump it in. what nutrients do u recommend. I use Instant Ocean Sea Salt when I do wc's. the fish store says it had nutrients in it. Argh, sounds like Im getting bad advice from the fish store.

 

Also, I read the test chart wrong. its more like 40ppm on the nitrates. Probably still kinda high though.

 

I meant you could be adding harmful nutrients through your water changes/top offs in the form of nitrates and phosphates. So you use tap water? if you could test some fresh made water change water, I would think you must be adding nitrates there.

 

Also I would say that the zoas and mushrooms don't really require the feedings you could cut them back/out and see if that helps as well.

40 ppm isn't as bad, still a little high but doable.

 

well, I just tested so new water that I prepped yesterday for a wc today. It is far from 0ppm. Closer to 20ppm. I guess we found out one of the problems... well that and feedings. Different water source maybe?