clueless

[TragicMagic]

Hi all,

I need help with something, I have a 125 FO tank with a lot of messy filthy fish, and needless to say I have a huge nurtient problem. I skimm 24/7 wit an oversized skimmer, EV200. I have cut way back on feeding, I put a lot of rock in the tank, about 140 lbs dead right now, I have 50 lbs of live on the way to seed it. I have some SD sand and some Rubbermaid tubs for a refugium and sump, but for now I am BROKE. I will not be able to finish everything for quite some time. Right now aside from my skimmer I only have a wet/dry. Now I know I have a problem, and I know what I need to do to take care of it (ref./sump), but until then I don't know what to to to export the excess nutrients? I don't have the moeny for bsically anything, is there anything I can do?

Please help,
Tony

[MalHavoc]

What are your nutrient measurements, anyway?

If you're adding all of that rock, seeded with live rock (which will be uncured by the time you get it, by the way), and you've put in a deep sand bed, I'd probably wait and see what happens. To me, it sounds like you have the natural filtration under control, once it starts to take off. Now that you've cut back on feeding, I'd wait and see what happens.

For the time being, I'd do water changes every week. You're going to need to anyway, when you add your live rock, since you will get a bit of die off.

Patience. It sounds like it will be okay.

[TragicMagic]

Hey Mal,

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunatly I do not have a DSB in the tank, and do not have the money to set up one in the refugium, as I want to. I have cut back on feedings for about two months now. I never bothered to actually record the exact mesurments, I just noticed that the nitrite and nitrate colors were WAY too dark, I knew it was bad, so I didn't bother to get the actual numbers. I will be getting the rock from www.aquariunarts.com, they advertise that they cure for weeks, then they ship in water, plus I live in CA so they can ship it to via Gray Hound, and I can have it in just a few hours, so I am hoping the die off will be very insignificant, but I will just have to wait and see. I guess I will just keep doing water changes, I was hoping I could pick up some cheap crude export method, at this point I really don't care if it is ugly in the tank, so long as it works. One thing I was thinking, since I have the sand, is, could I put a sand bed under the bio balls in the wet/dry? It is not that big, so I am not even sure it would provide enough filtration.

Thanks again for your help,
Tony