emmett0122
Reef enthusiast
yes it is
nitrates
- Thread starter emmett0122
- Start date
ErinCahir
Sausage Wrangler
It's still not old or large enough.
emmett0122
Reef enthusiast
i have nass snails in there now. as far as vacuuming the tank we never had a problem with the gravel getting crappy in our 8 freshwater tanks. as far as aragonite sand, the aragonite doesnt do anything for tank unless you have a sand bed over 6" deep. the water in the tank is alkaline not acid so it can not desolve the calcium carbonate to help buffer the ph
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emmett0122
Reef enthusiast
and to add i know 5ppm nitrates are not that bad but i want 0 in my tank. and i didnt have this problem till i add mass snails and powerheads
chichimom79
reef junkie
What this says to me is that the snails and extra water movement is stirring up the detritus from your sand and rock. Keep doing those water changes. Im in the same boat right now trying to get my levels below 5 nitrates. My tank is being stubborn as well.
emmett0122
Reef enthusiast
chichimom i am leaning towards the rocks i have south seas rock witch has tons of holes and the amount of crud that came out of them after i started the powerheads shocked me.
has anyone on here ever tried dosing vodka
has anyone on here ever tried dosing vodka
KelliZackMOM
Amy
For what it's worth, hang in there. I struggled with my trates for the longest time. A ton of water changes using RODI water that tested 0. Tried different test kits thinking I had bad ones.Had sand, added skimmer, tried an algae scrubber. Stocked slowly. Only fed every other day. I was really discouraged because no matter what I did my trates ran 10-20 for what seemed like forever. I even battled a cyano outbreak.
I got to the point where I said whats the sense in lugging all of these buckets of water when I am making no progress. I may get beat down for this advice, but what worked for me was I left the tank alone for almost 2 months. I quit being so obsessive over water changes and testing. That was when my tank was about 10 months old. At about the 1 year mark, poof it was like magic and my trates were 0. During those couple months I had major coraline growth and growth of my corals. All I did different was left my tank alone and let it mature. Now I do water changes every 2-3 weeks and all has remained good.
I got to the point where I said whats the sense in lugging all of these buckets of water when I am making no progress. I may get beat down for this advice, but what worked for me was I left the tank alone for almost 2 months. I quit being so obsessive over water changes and testing. That was when my tank was about 10 months old. At about the 1 year mark, poof it was like magic and my trates were 0. During those couple months I had major coraline growth and growth of my corals. All I did different was left my tank alone and let it mature. Now I do water changes every 2-3 weeks and all has remained good.
emmett0122
Reef enthusiast
that is where i am now i and on the verge of a cyano outbreak. thank you for your input. and as far as getting beat down i dont worry about that i get beat up all the time for my sub straight. but what it comes down to is as long as your tank is healthy and the critters in it are happy you are doing the right thing
KelliZackMOM
Amy
If you are seeing cyano, keep up with the changes. That is not something you want to let go. I had my cyano outbreak prior to and had it resolved before the period where I did nothing with my tank. If you are seeing bad things then keep doing the changes and suck as much of the bad stuff out as possible. The 2 month period where I did no water changes, I had nothing bad growing. Just had high trates and some diatoms.
