Nirate levels
15 posts • Page 1 of 2
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littlej2455 - Posts: 193
- Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:30 am
Nirate levels
What do yall try to keep your nitrate levels at? Mine is at 15 right now and I was just curious what others have theres at.
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littlej2455 - Posts: 193
- Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:30 am
how do you keep it that low. I have a protein skimmer too, but I still dont get those results. How old is your tank?
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schigara - Posts: 468
- Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm
Tank is 10 months. 120gallons water volume, 150lbs live rock, Modded Octopus 200 skimmer, 8in sandbed in primary refugium and 2 species of Xenia in secondary 29g refugium.
When I was using chaeto macro algae in refugium as nutrient export, my nitrates would hover around 10-20. When I switched over to Xenia, my nitrates fell to zero.
I feed no pellet or flake food. I only feed rinsed frozen food or a ground up mix of fresh seafood.
I turn off the return pump when I feed the display tank and leave the powerheads on so the food stays suspended in the water column and the fish consume a great majority of it.
Once a month, I take one of the powerhead and blow at the live rock to get the uneaten food and fish poo out of the holes in the rock that have settled so the skimmer can remove it.
When I was using chaeto macro algae in refugium as nutrient export, my nitrates would hover around 10-20. When I switched over to Xenia, my nitrates fell to zero.
I feed no pellet or flake food. I only feed rinsed frozen food or a ground up mix of fresh seafood.
I turn off the return pump when I feed the display tank and leave the powerheads on so the food stays suspended in the water column and the fish consume a great majority of it.
Once a month, I take one of the powerhead and blow at the live rock to get the uneaten food and fish poo out of the holes in the rock that have settled so the skimmer can remove it.
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schigara - Posts: 468
- Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm
You could change it over. Do you have live rock? If you had about 100lbs of LR, you could ditch the bioballs and use that compartment.
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littlej2455 - Posts: 193
- Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:30 am
I am not really familiar with a refugium, so if I just get rid of the bio-balls and put in live rock, will that help lover my nitrates? What else would I have to do to make it a successful refugium?
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singapore - Posts: 238
- Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:47 pm
ive had alot of luck with mangroves. my old sump had about 20lbs of liverock, and a bunch of mangrove shoots. they lowered my nitrates quite a bit. but now, i dont have any sump and am trying to keep my nitrates low by havong a bunch or macro in my display tank. my nitrates are at about 30, but i rarely have spikes. i have no skimmer at the moment. just a canister filter to get rid of the fish poop i blow off the rox every once in a while. Caulerpa is mainly what i have. i would much rather pay more for macroalgae than buy a skimmer, i prefer the natural look of the tank with alot of green and purple and not very much distracting equipment at the top of the tank. the only problem with this setup is that it restricts the type of fish i ccan buy...pretty much no tangs or herbivores....they would decimate my macro...
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stubbysmom - Posts: 8
- Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:09 pm
This is a really interesting topic! Thanks! We have a protein skimmer and just set up our tank a little over a week ago. The nitrate levels hover around 8 and I thought that was high as we thought they should be around 0. I also like the look of the different colored algeas which we are getting a growth of right now. The main algea though, is a brown one. We have a canister filter and a couple powerheads which provide quite a bit of current.
