Advice on Nitrate/Phosphate problems
 

In the past two months (maybe more), i have problems with nitrate and phosphate levels in my 90g reef tank. Phosphate levels have ranged from 0.5 - 2.5 ppm and nitrates have ranged from 10 - 25 ppm. I am at my wits end trying to bring the levels down. I have tried nitrate and phosphate sponges with limited success (phosphates dropped for a little while, but returned). I have done two large scale (>20g) water changes recently with no success. I have also cleaned out my sump and i clean out the foam filters bi-weekly.

Deionized water and salt mix have shown negligible levels of both anions. I feed the tank freezedried bloodworm and mysis shrimp (washed before addition to tank). I will also feed flake food (prime reef, cyclopeeze flakes). Over feeding shouldn't be a problem as i only feed every second day if i remember. I give phytoplex (2 capfulls) 1-2 week.

Can anyone suggest any alternatives to getting those levels back to a healthy range? What other sources of phosphate and nitrate could be introduced accidently?

Thanks

From what I've heard bloodworms are always packed full of nutirents and I haven't heard of too many people using them. Same goes for mysis but not as much. You might want to try feeding more cyclopeeze and flake or pellet food more often and using mysis as a treat.

Also for phosphate, a phosban reactor works very well and is relatively inexpensive.

For Nitrate there's been a few people using a 5 or 10G sealed bucket almost full to the top with unused aragonite. Leave about 2 or three inches for water to pass over the sand. Pump some water from your sump or tank into the top few inches of one side of the bucket and out the other side back into the sump with enough flow to ensure nothing is going to settle on the sand like detritus. From what I've read this works like a charm. The sand soaks up all the nitrate and works very well as a pH buffer too. Change the sand when the you notice your nitrate going up again. I think it lasts a long time though. There's a thread on Canreef about this. I'll try and find it for you.

Just straight up ditch the foam.

Just to play devils advocate...

Sugar.

LOL!

Any luck on finding the link??? both my tanks, 75G & 20 G are high in nitrates too

doesnt the foam work as a bubble trap?

If you have a lot of spare time you can read this http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=1 My next tank will have a sandbed filter similar to these, only bigger.

Just from my experience, 6 out of 10 people who start with a sandbed will quit their tank before a year has elapsed.

Well I didn't quit and still have one tank (230g) with a deep sand bed.......but if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't have one. All my other tanks are BB and I will probably eventually remove the sand from the 230g.
Sand and foam are evil. Every tank I have ever had a foam in has had high nitrates - remove the foam and the nitrates fell. Even though I was rinsing the heck out of the foam every week or even 2 times a week I still stuggled with nitrates. Not that they have totally disappeared but at least they are managable with water changes twice a month.