Advice on Nitrate/Phosphate problems

[Flusher]

Originally Posted by Doug

But when I see the crap that comes from my tank & some of my older rock now, I just shake my head thinking of where it all went before.

Doesn't it just dissolve into the water column, then gets removed by water changes and skimmers? That was always my understanding, coming from my freshwater experiences (minus the skimmer part, of course). Once I got into planted tanks, I quit siphoning the substrate completely. I never had a problem.

My nano tank has been running for a year with a 1.5 - 2" sand bed that I've never siphoned. I've never had nitrates register yet. Granted, a year isn't a long time, and such a small tank makes it easy to do weekly 15% water changes (that's total volume, not actual volume after accounting for whatever is taking up room in the tank). Also, I quite like the look of the colourful layers in the substrate. I guess this is the crap that drives some people nuts.

At any rate, with my new 24 G tank almost set up, I've decided to go with under 1" of fresh aragonite in all three of my tanks. Hopefully nassarius snails will do a sufficient job rooting through the substrate.
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