Wow everything mentioned is great advice :lol:

For starts as mentioned increase your water changes to weekly till the levels come down and reduce feeding. Then certainly look at bigger skimmers, N/P pellets and cheato to keep the levels down.

How many fish?

Bump for this question...

I like vodka,but the last time I mentioned that... it got kinda weird :mrgreen:

By not downsizing the chaeto ball you will have missed the whole point of growing it. The idea is to use macro algae as a nutrient export mechanism. By not removing any part of the ball you will not be exporting anything.

Thanks! Is there a certain color or part of the ball that I should dispose of? Ie, remove the top half?

Just pull part of it off every once and a while and toss it, trade it, sell it, eat it... whatever. Unless part of it looks poor or is dying the mass should look pretty uniform. I sometimes find that I get other types of algae growing on my chaeto mass. So I'll pick that section to throw out.

This will lower Nitrates for you
 

These works very well i have one and it works wonders very good product. !!GET ONE!! :mrgreen:

I battled with nitrates forever, fed less, changed lights, food, water changes every day etc etc etc.

Vertex Bio Pellets was the answer for me. I tried another brand before that with little success. It took a good 3-4 months but now nitrates are undetectable.