Bad advice?

[youtoo54]

When I told my LFS about my high nitrate level he said to do a water change to lower it. He also instructed me to "filter my sand" with one of the vacuum tubes every pet store sells. Could this also be the cause of my high nitrate levels not going down?

 

[SeaBee]

Water change yes, filter the sand, not such a good idea. We just had a thread like this. You can do the water change, with fresh salt water, and add some sand-sifters, snails and stuff. Ask the lfs what he has for sand sifters, narsissius, (sp), and other snails filter the sand bed for you.

 

[little_fish]

You can clean the sand bed, but you should never do the whole thing at once. At best it will send your nitrates soaring, more likely you will cause your tank to recycle. People who do like to clean their sand beds will clean a small patch with every water change, and over the course of a couple months every section will be cleaned.

Its best, like SeaBee said, to get critters to stir the sand bed for you. The best are nass snails. Your lfs might try and sell you a sand shifting star fish, but with your nitrates as high as they are, it will most likely die. Starfish are extremely sensitive to nitrates. You could also look into getting a sand shifting goby to help keep the sand bed in check.

Also, when you do get the snails, i would take an extra long time to acclimate them because of the high nitrates. All invertebrates are extremely sensitive to nitrates, which are toxic to them. With the snails you might be able to acclimate a few to your levels enough to survive and start cleaning the sand bed.

 

[little_tuna]

Good to know. I thought you just vacuumed the sand like you would a fresh water tank.

 

[little_fish]

Nope, almost none of the freshwater rules apply to saltwater. Saltwater is whole different ball game.

 

[fastrd400]

Good to know. I thought you just vacuumed the sand like you would a fresh water tank.

You can, but you need to do that from your very first water change. At this point, just get a bunch of made snails. Maybe a conch.

 

[youtoo54]

K so now that I've vacuumed my whole sand bed and my nitrates are high will they settle back down? I plan on doing more water changes to help and also going to up grade my POS skimmer.

 

[little_fish]

They should, but like ive said they arent going to go away over night. Its going to take many water changes to get them down, and then you work to keep them around zero.

 

[fastrd400]

How high are they?

 

[youtoo54]

Its showing around the 100ppm range