bkv1997
Reef enthusiast
I personally don't have any signs of stress in my tank and everything is doing wonderful, but that doesn't stop me from testing my water parameters.
I have never had an issue, but my nitrates always fluctuate from around 1ppm to 20ppm. This has really been ignored on my part for the simple reason everything was doing well so why bother it. Recently thouhg I have had (8 months) two Acropora hyanctis maybe i spelled that wrong, but commonly refered to as Table Top Acropora that were wild colonies that seem to do fine for about 3-4 months then start to fade off.
My thoughts is the wild colonies aren't use to those high nitrates and they simply cant handle the higher levels of nitrate.
So here is where my journey began into researching ways to remove nitrate effectively, keeping in mind I have a limited space and will even be more limited in the tank i'm upgrading to.
1) Refugium with calurpa or cheato works well, but requires a large volume of water, 5% of my main tank isn't goign to give me much of a result.
2) denitrification systems... might work, but have read maybe a couple to many horror stories about sulfure hydroxide due to salt creep or a hose getting plugged and causing the drip rate to slow down to much. (to much of a risk here for me)
3) Deep Sand Bed - easy to do, but unsightly.
So here we are at the deep sand bed.
Here are a list of my question?
1) Does anyone here have a sand bed between 4-6" in depth and with a partical size of sand around .2 millimeters (sugar size sand)?
2) Does anyone just have a deep sand bed in a small refugium type tank and does it keep the nitrates less than 1ppm?
Lets keep this thread about deep sand beds, I know water changes can lower nitrates and that I should feed less. The problem is I will and always will do water changes, but they still can't keep nitrates at the levels found in nature. I do 25% every two weeks. Plus, I don't believe in not feeding my animals as a method of reducing nitrate.
So i guess I'm at the point where i'm wondering what portion of the tank needs to be a DSB? Can i get away with just the 20 gallon refuge being a DSB? Or do I need to have my custom stand built so that the tank sits 3 inches down, so the unsightly appearnce of the DSB isn't visible?
Any thoughts suggestions or discussions in or related to this topic would be helpful.
Good articles if you are interested:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/iss...st2003/chem.htm
http://www.rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm
Thanks
Brandon
I have never had an issue, but my nitrates always fluctuate from around 1ppm to 20ppm. This has really been ignored on my part for the simple reason everything was doing well so why bother it. Recently thouhg I have had (8 months) two Acropora hyanctis maybe i spelled that wrong, but commonly refered to as Table Top Acropora that were wild colonies that seem to do fine for about 3-4 months then start to fade off.
My thoughts is the wild colonies aren't use to those high nitrates and they simply cant handle the higher levels of nitrate.
So here is where my journey began into researching ways to remove nitrate effectively, keeping in mind I have a limited space and will even be more limited in the tank i'm upgrading to.
1) Refugium with calurpa or cheato works well, but requires a large volume of water, 5% of my main tank isn't goign to give me much of a result.
2) denitrification systems... might work, but have read maybe a couple to many horror stories about sulfure hydroxide due to salt creep or a hose getting plugged and causing the drip rate to slow down to much. (to much of a risk here for me)
3) Deep Sand Bed - easy to do, but unsightly.
So here we are at the deep sand bed.
Here are a list of my question?
1) Does anyone here have a sand bed between 4-6" in depth and with a partical size of sand around .2 millimeters (sugar size sand)?
2) Does anyone just have a deep sand bed in a small refugium type tank and does it keep the nitrates less than 1ppm?
Lets keep this thread about deep sand beds, I know water changes can lower nitrates and that I should feed less. The problem is I will and always will do water changes, but they still can't keep nitrates at the levels found in nature. I do 25% every two weeks. Plus, I don't believe in not feeding my animals as a method of reducing nitrate.
So i guess I'm at the point where i'm wondering what portion of the tank needs to be a DSB? Can i get away with just the 20 gallon refuge being a DSB? Or do I need to have my custom stand built so that the tank sits 3 inches down, so the unsightly appearnce of the DSB isn't visible?
Any thoughts suggestions or discussions in or related to this topic would be helpful.
Good articles if you are interested:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/iss...st2003/chem.htm
http://www.rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm
Thanks
Brandon