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Help--My nitrate levels are too high

JRocha said:
i use a euroreef skimmer and a sh!tload of seachem pond matrix and I overfeed like crazy. the seachem pond matrix takes a little while to cycle but works great. I have 4 litres of it in my sump right before my return pumps which is seperated by egg crate so the water passes through it all the time. regular matrix is small but the pond matrix is about a inch in size so you don't need any filter bags or anything. just submerge it and you have another filter that removes nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia and it never needs to be removed or replaced. great product but you have to order it online since no LFS in our area carries it.
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Any comparisons to Eco Bak or Bio Pellets? Sounds like it does the same thing but doesn't need to be replaced and the Eco Bak or Bio Pellets also takes care of PO4.

-Gregory
 
That seachem stuff sounds a lot like a simple live-rock replacement.
Basically optimized pores to allow great denitrification.
That does work of course - just like live rock does - but only to some extent.
You can overload it, plus, it really mostly works to convert ammonia to nitrogen (full cycle).
It is not something that can convert nitrate to nitrogen directly.

There are lots of things on the net with the whole chemical cycle.
But the real key problem : you need to get the nitrates to that region, but not oxygen.
Not as simple as it sounds.
 
yeah I only got the seachem stuff cause the ReefresH20 block I used to use is off the market and that had to be replaced every year. at least this stuff doesn't need to be replaced. But it does work. and yeah I overloaded it. I have enough to filter over 800 gallons. my water is crystal clear. I over do it on the filtration part. I use 2 of the biggest chemi pure elites, euro reef skimmer, pounds of caluerpa, uv sterilizer, and the pond matrix. all nitrates are gone or undetectable.
 
Ok, making a lot more sense to me now.
So a fair part of the denitrification is probably done chemically with the chemi-pure.
Not a bad strategy. Those big chemi-pures look to be about $40, but compared to the
power/water/salt/etc, and especially hassle, not really so bad.
Hmmm....
 
Thales said:
How deep is your sandbed? How much did you mess with it?
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+1. the last time I messed with my sand is when I removed it all at once. a month later the tank crashed and wiped out all but my clowns, my eel, and marine betta. I then added new sand back and had to start a new cycle and since then I haven't cleaned it or touched it. I just bought 2 sand dollars and they keep the top layer pretty clean. oh yeah nassuris snails work great as well. if you stirred up the sand and released all the crap buried deep within, that could have messed with your chemistry. I've learned in this hobby to just set up the tank as best as you can and leave it alone.
 
the chemi-pure by itself will clear up the water, but it didn't lower my nitrates. I run chemi-pure elite year round and still had nitrates. it was when I added the pond matrix to my tank that lowered the nitrates. the reason I say that is cause I tried a bunch of stuff, even seachem purigen which was supposed to work for removing nitrates but my tank didn't like it as it stressed some stuff out. plus I have always had pounds of caulerpa growing in my 125 gallon sump and that didn't do much either. granted I overfeed my tank. I dump oyster feast in like its the thing to do as well as PE mysis. I have a 8 inch vlamingi tang, 4" achilles tang, 4" purple tang, 4" blue hippo tang, 6" marine betta, dwarf golden moray eel that full grown, pair of GBM clowns, blue tile goby, black cap gramma, strawberry dottyback, leopard wrasse, 2 randal gobies, 3 other wrasses that I don't know the name of, flame hawk, a cave goby, about 8 cleaner shrimp, and a yashia goby. so my bioload is pretty big, plus I have no more room for corals, and over 100 snails and like 10 hermits. So if you have room to put some pond matrix in your sump I would highly recommend it. good luck.
 
JRocha said:
the chemi-pure by itself will clear up the water, but it didn't lower my nitrates. I run chemi-pure elite year round and still had nitrates. it was when I added the pond matrix to my tank that lowered the nitrates. the reason I say that is cause I tried a bunch of stuff, even seachem purigen which was supposed to work for removing nitrates but my tank didn't like it as it stressed some stuff out. plus I have always had pounds of caulerpa growing in my 125 gallon sump and that didn't do much either. granted I overfeed my tank. I dump oyster feast in like its the thing to do as well as PE mysis.
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I suspect that the Matrix gave a bunch of surface area for NNR to occur, which is what you are really going for in the nitrogen cycle, weather it be in rock, DSB or RDSB. I have seen no evidence that any of the nitrate removers actually work. I think surface area for NNR beats algae any day.

:D
 
the best part of the pond matrix is that you never have to replace it. One time fee. can't go wrong. as for the other nitrate removers, thyey didn't seem to work for my bioload. I just like it cause you don't need to overload your tank with live rock, just overload your sump with matrix and your set
 
still doing water changes although now it seems like my clown may have tail rot or some sort of fungus that is eroding its tail. Upside is that he ate a little bit today and is not hiding or burrowing anymore...not sure what else to do for the little guy. I'm wondering if this tail thing was from when I found him lying ON my disc coral. I wish I knew how to help him. Any suggestions?
 
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