Nanoreefnewbie 2012 nano contest entry

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by reefwars

their ideas were right but the method is too fast, perhaps if you had no livestock in the tank but with critters in the tank i wouldnt be doing large water changes like that daily.

With nitrates as high as they were, I would absolutely do the big water changes daily until they were back inline. Truthfully, if it was my tank, I would have done closer to 100%. I have done it in the past, and I would absolutely do it again. Providing the critical parameters are close between the NSW and the tank water there shouldn't be any issues at all.

The hermits molting isn't a big deal (typically). The brittle star getting sucked into the powerhead sucks, but is most likely unrelated to the water changes. The broken sump baffles have nothing to do with the water changes either.

The only real "problem" that I see here is that the nitrates aren't coming down, and they are at dangerously high levels.

This means one of three things:
1) The test is faulty,
2) The NSW has nitrates, or
3) Something in the tank is generating an obscene amount of nitrates.

Originally Posted by Boxboy

Changing water daily removes the Good stuff!

In nano tanks the "good stuff" is typically added through water changes. What "good stuff" do you feel is being removed from the system through water changes?