High Nitrates and Refugium question

[Lou Cifer]

I have a 125gal, and my nitrates are off the charts! I just installed a new sump/refugium and am wondering if it is absolutely necessary to have a sand bed in the fuge area?
Can I just have chaeto and light? Will that alone help bring the nitrates down? I don't have any live rock in the tank yet, that's coming in the next few months.
I've tried a nitrate sponge to no avail. I just did a 35gal water change today.
What the hell can I do? About 3 weeks ago I added 4 snails and they literally died as soon as I dropped them in the water. It's driving me nuts!
Please help!
Thanks

[Codeman00]

I have read everything I can about whether or not you need sand in the fuge area. What I've come up with is that everyone has a different opinion on substrate in the fuge and in the tank area: plenums, deep sand beds, etc. I'm tagging along with this thread too....but all I'm going to have is live rock and chaeto in my fuge...no substrate at all.Now all I need to do is find a good source for buying chaeto.

[Fer]

I think you need a sand bed in your fuge, and a lot of caulerpa in it, as well as water changes. That will solve your nitrate problem. Keep in mind that your calcium level shall be over 300 for caulerpa growth.

[Codeman00]

No offense, but I have read nothing good about caulerpa. It seems as though it used to be the refugium standard until many people had problems with it going sexual and releasing all of the nutrients back into the system all at once. To prevent that, you would have to keep light on it 24 hrs a day, but there is still a risk. I prefer not to pu my tank at risk of that. Chaeto seems to be the way to go now.

[Fatboy]

Lou Cifer,

Can you give us a little more information about your tank ? What kind of substrate do you have ? Any live rock ? Skimmer ? How often are you feeding ? What kind of population you have ?

In my experience, the best way to fight against nitrates is to have a "good" skimmer. In this way, all the waste is taken out before it has the chance to be mineralized to nitrates.

In my tank (which is a little bit bigger than yours), I ran an MRC MR2 skimmer that keeps my nitrates undetectable even that I feed a lot. As soon as I feed my fish, the skimmer starts foaming like crazy and takes out a lot of waste.

I have read of some other tanks with nitrate problems that have purchased a bigger skimmer and in less than five weeks the nitrate problems were gone.

If you are still planing to go with a refugium, Chaeto is much more stable than caulerpa, so that would be my choice.

[Lou Cifer]

Hey Fatboy,
I just scooped all of the sand out, I don't have any live rock in the tank, except for some rubble rock in the intake area of my sump.
I'm gonna be adding some live rock over the next couple of months, a little low on funds, know what I mean? As far as the skimmer goes, I have a Euro-Reef CS-8-2 recirculating, I think it;s rated for 150 and over. It pulls out a ton of junk and I can adjust it to pull more during feeding time. Fish list: 1-Achilles Tang, 1-small Mimic tang, 2-damsels, 5- chromis.

[BeanAnimal]

Sounds like you have a lot of bio-load and not a lot of bio-filter. You need that live rock. The DSB ina fuge will help a lot from what i understand and the macro will help but not as quickly.

Bean

[Fatboy]

Lou Cifer,

You have no sand or live rock ? No wonder why your nitrates are way up....... Have you measured ammonia and nitrites ?

You have a lack of biological filtration and that is creating your problems. By removing the sand and not having liver rock in your tank, your tank lost its balance and it will take some time to fix that.

Put some live rock as soon as possible. That plus aggresive skimming, should solve your problems in the near future. In the meanwhile, you could use some chemical filtration to get rid of nitrates and possible amonia and nitrites (ex: Purigen by Seachem).

If you get some Chaeto, it would also help. Don't expect inmediate results until you don't reestablish your biological filtration.

[Lou Cifer]

Fatboy,
The tank has been running for 14 months now. For the first year, I was using bio-balls and a sand bed, not live sand though because any time that I tried that, all the little creatures in sand would just die within a day, at least the ones that were visible, and my nitrates were through the roof.
For the last two months, I've been using live rock rubble in my sump, and still high nitrates.
Is it because I don't have 250lbs of live rock and 100lbs of live sand?

[BeanAnimal]

all sand becomes live sand once it is in the tank... the same with rock. The bio balls present their own nitrate problem. The bio-balls were likely the originak nitrate factory, then you took them out and removed most of the sand also. The small amount of rubble in the sump is not enough. With the current setup, the only NITRATE export you have is water changes.

Bean

[Psionicdragon]

I have had a lot of high nitrates issue and I'll share my experience:

1) Overfeed can cause an increase in nitrate and phosphate, so reduce your feeding to every other day

2) You need sand or rocks to house the living bacteria that completes the cycle. You can use base rock and regular sand, in time, the sand and rock will be live. You could also add additional bacteria from a bottle or grab some from friends/fellow reefers who has an establish tank with no diseases or medication. You do not need both (Sand and rocks), but one or the other.

You could also save a lot of money by making your own rocks. You can find the information on here or GARF's website (its easier to find it here since it is a maze at GARF's website). You have to becareful because the rocks will cause PH flucuation. It must be cured 5-7 weeks.

You save a lot of money using that format.

If you are using old rocks, it is best to "cook it first" because the old rocks are saturated with nitrate and phospate from previous tank. When I restarted my tank, my rocks were leeching phosphate and nitrate which began a hair algae epidemic. SeanT and Boomer or BomberT (forgot which) has detail information about the process.

3) Fish load/Fish Waste: you need blow the detrius (sp?) around so it can be sucked down to your sump where your skimmer will "eat" it. Otherwise, the trash will be left in your main tank and slowly break down which will contribute to the nitrate/phosphate issue. Remember it MUST be in reach for the skimmer to pull it out, otherwise your skimmer has nothing to pull out and will look like it is not working.

I just saw your fish list. You need to blow the trash into your overflow or whatever you are using to export water from your main tank to your sump. Tangs crap a lot and they are very noticable.I have a scopas tang and this bugger craps a lot. What I did to blow detrius around is grab a PVC pipe and at the end, I added a tubing that curves and just use my mouth to blow the it around. Very effective because of the flow. (Save money too!)

4) Refugium: Melev's website has good information on the light bulb to use and how he has set it up. I think many people try to mimic his technique. I do not really know what causes the caulpera to go asexual, but they grow very fast in my tank compare to chaeto. The refugium will not work right away, but will work in the long run. However, as stated by others, the light needs to be on 24/7. The reason is because of photosynthesis. During photsynthesis, the plants are using the nutrients around them to support their growth.

There are many arguments against 24/7. I had it 8 hours a day and it did not do much. I am testing the 24/7 now.

5) Water changes will help you reduce your nitrate; however, your nitrate may be so high that you may do a really large change. Some would say 10-20%, others say 50%, and 75%. If you are using RODI water that has minimal TDS or nitrate, your nitrate will be reduce by almost the same % that you change the water for.

I had nitrate of 80ppm, 50% water change, 40ppm.

If your water is bad, check your RODI system because you may have an expired catridge or a broken unit. Do not do too fast of a change because the fish will be shocked or something. Do it over the course of the week.

6) Nitrate sponge: it really depends on which one you use. The one I used was total crap and it did not do anything. Which brand are you using?

7) Last solution is used AZ-NO3, a chemical or enzyme (shrug?). This has worked well for me with no adverse affects, but must follow instructions to prevent cloudiness in the tank.

I hope these information helps!

[Avi]

I have a 120-gallon reef and no measurable nitrates...you don't need a sand bed if you don't want one. I don't have one, but I do have 150 pounds of live rock and a good skimmer. You have a good skimmer but the rock is also necessary.

[lillibirdy]

If I understand you, for the first 12 months you where using the bio balls and your live sand, (yes, it was live with bacteria by then), for biological filtration. You removed all that biological filtration two months ago, before the new sump and whatever was in it had time to kick in...leaving you with only what the rubble provided? I am wondering why you aren't having huge ammonia spike...or if you did, why you still have fish alive? I still get all worried when I have to change filter pads on my hot, and do them one at a time so not to remove to much good bacteria...

Wish I could help more I am also learning about nitrate removal right now. I am turning the hot filter into a little hot refugium, also with chaeto.

[Drewpy]

What's your bio load (number and size of fish)... I love caulpera... Just prune it regularly... I use the grape stuff and it is easy to remove... Grows 3 or 4 times faster then chaeto at least.... I have both...

[Lou Cifer]

Lillibirdy - My pars. are Nitrite-0. Amm-0, PH-8.2, Nitrates-thru the roof.
All fish are fine.

Drewpy- I have 1-med Achilles Tang, 1-small Mimic Tang, 5 - Small Chromis, and 2 -small yellow tail damsels.