Nitrate help

[adampw]

Well my nitrates have been throught the roof the past couple of months. My guess is that it is my canister filter.
Setup:
29g
remora pro skimmer
Fluval Canister Filter with carbon, Phosphate remover, and sponge filters.
2 Powerheads 270gph and 170gph
25lbs live rock
live sand
150w mh lights
1 bubble tip anenome
1 sand sifting star, 1 chocolate chip star, 1 tube worm

Obviously it is the canister filter causing my nitrates to go way up. My question is if the protien skimmer and live rock is enough for filtration? I have thought about a sump but I have no idea where to start. I have a empty 10g tank that I could probally use bu I dont have a lot of room. I did 2 5g water changes this week already which has helped. Any ideas/suggestions/comments?

Thanks!

[reeffreak]

If your not cleaning the sponge filters than thats can be part of the reason.Run the canister part time,maybe a week once a month.

If you add another 10-20 more pounds of live rock then you can do without the canister or use it part time.IMO,a refugium with macro algae is the best nitrate reduction.

Your fish list and feeding also plays a part of the nitrate problems people have.

[Bifferwine]

Watch out for that BTA with high nitrates. They do not tolerate poor water quality and will crash your entire tank.

Since you have a good skimmer, I would remove the canister filter altogether.

Are you doing regular water changes, with good water (not tap water)?

What/how often are you feeding?

[adampw]

I use ro/di water so I am ok there. As far as feeding I use zooplex about once a week, and feed my bta a silverside about once a week as well. The funny thing is, my BTA has lived through everything in my tank lol. I used to have a couple of perc clowns but they both died from ich. I had a really bad case of ich and really couldnt put anything in there for quite a while. Then i lost a blenny at some point (never found it) which spiked my ammonia, nitrites and of course nitrate. My nitrates were at 90ppm and now it is about 20ppm after the water changes. Never even effected my BTA. stayed bright in color and everything. Everything else is good. No ammonia, no nitrites. I also does essential elements and iodide. Looks like I will just have to stop the canister filter. The only reason I even bought that filter was to run that phosphate remover through it because my phosphate was riduculous and I was experiencing a lot of algae. My water quality is great all except for the nitrates ( i have coralline algea growth with more growing). I am kind of confused because with nitrates that high my BTA should have died along with everything else! I used 2 different tests too. Who knows!

[bobby]

I think maybe your nitrate kit is bad. Take a sample to your LFS and have them double check for you. I would think your BTA would have died along with you star fishes if it really was at 90. Also 2-5gal water changes wouldn't bring your trates down to 20 from 90. The amount of water you remove is how many trates you remove, so if you did a 50% change then that would bring it down to 45PPM and if you split it in smaller changes then it takes out less. Each 5 gal change should be about 15% so 90-15% = 76PPM then 76-15%=65PPM. I think your kits wrong or an error was made while testing.

[adampw]

ive used both API and salifert nitrate kits multiple times. Thats what i thought at first, that my tests were wrong. However they were the same everytime. My lfs is really weak lfs though (they have livestock, but dont sell test kits). Anyways I am going to purchase a new test kit and try it again.

[Bifferwine]

I had a sea cucumber die in my tank which raised my nitrates to 150. None of my animals died, and I had a BTA at the time too. I think if you get them under control quickly enough, any damage done is reversible, so it's not impossible that your BTA has survived nitrates that high.

If they are at 20 now, that's not bad at all. Removing the canister filter and continuing with water changes should bring them even lower over time. It seems to me that you've gotten through the worst of it, and you should be in the clear from this point on.

[Damseluver]

I have had excellent luck maintaining undetectable nitrate levels with deep sand bends.

You would have to invest in a small overflow box and appropriate sized return pump depending on head height and use your ten gallon tank.

Layer in six inches of fine play sand from the Home Depot into your ten gallon tank and plump it to your display. No lighting needed here its not a fuge. Your trates will likely fall with in a few weeks. You can even cut some eggcrate to fit the top of the ten gal/dsb lay some poly filter over the top and let the water draining from the OFB run over the poly before it enters the ten gal/sump/remote DSB and forget about the canister.

This type set up can be noisy. The over flow box can be pretty much be silenced by various means but the water flowing over the poly and dropping into the DSB tank will have a water fall sound. Or you can use some other filtration and run the plumbing right to the sumps water level eliminating even this noise.

Google DSB for more info

[McCrary]

As said above it is most likely your canister filter that is causing the nitrate problems. Just get rid of it and it should help. The amount of feeding that you do is also going to be an issue. Remember that water changes are not a very effective way to get rid of nitrates. Your best bet is going to be to find the source. Anthony Calfo has written some good stuff on remote deep sand beds. They can be very effective, but it would be easiest to simply find what is causing the problem.

[simpleman]

Anyone ever hear of putting live rock rubble into a cannister filter or sand put into filter bags instead of regular filter media?