When doing water changes, do you stir the sandbed?

[iozomatli]

I have nitrate problems in my tank, and my corals are dying. I think they are dying because I've seen these strings of stuff coming from the corals, and have seen my zoos starting to disappear. So I am doing water changes, and wondering if I stir the sandbed, would it decrease the nitrates? I was wondering about stiring the sandbed and getting the dirty stuff up out of the sand to suck it up with a siphon. Or should I just do a water change without attemtping to clean out the tank?

Nitrates under 20mg/L and above 5mg/L

[romunov]

Stiring would not decrese nitrate levels. Export nutrients via skimmer, fuge...

[iozomatli]

I have a small piccolo skimmer, but no fuge. So water chages are only way to decrease nitrates?

[Brewboy74]

No you can grow macroalgae in a refugium which will significantly lower your nitrates. A skimmer will export nutrients as well by removing organics before they can break down into nitrates via the nitrogen cycle.

What kind of substrate are you using? If you answer crushed coral that most likely is your problem. It will trap detritus and allow to seep bad stuff into your water.

You should probably invest in a better skimmer, something like a remora HOB would be a good idea.

In that size of tank even if you get a better skimmer and add a refugium you will still need to do some water changes. It's tough to keep the water stable in a small system. HTH

[iozomatli]

Ah okay, I have live sand as a substrate, so I guess better skimmer an fuge is the answer. Thanks

[Kamko]

Plant life, plant life, and one more time plant life. Get some macroalgae and/or magrooves. Before I added some plant life in my tank my nitrates were usually between 10-20ppm. Now they are below 5 ppm. Good luck

[Brewboy74]

I don't even have a skimmer yet and my nitrates are 0-.5 ppm. Macros are very nice

[tdtiger]

I believe stirring up your sand beds will interfere with the llife and tunnels created by the worms and copepods disturbing its purpose. The life in the sand will turn itself on its own.

Remove nitrate with macro algae or mangroves. 1 mangrove per 10 gallons of water.

Also do some water changes to help.

[TonyHNYC]

If you corals are dying because of nitrates, your quickest way out is getting some water changes. Afterwards, you need to figure out the source of your nitrates. Do you have a lot of fish? Do you feed the animals many times a day? You'll have to figure out the source of nitrates and start cutting down.

[iozomatli]

I feed my fish small amoutns of food like 3 times a day, but only 1 fish and a couple of shrimps. How do I take care of mangroves?

[bertoni]

I don't know of any plant life that will help you with nitrates. Mangroves grow very slowly, so it's really not clear that they do much, although they look nice. With a 15g tank, I don't think you want any. A search should turn up more information.

Macroalgae can help with nitrate problems. This article has a lot of ideas and covers the topic pretty well.