Phophates and Nitrates

[Jack]

Originally Posted by Toooloud

What are his nitrates at? anything above 50ppm i would remove all the fish right away., anything less they have achance..

Fish can tolerate fairly high nitrates it's the corals I would be worrying about.

What kind of sand bed did he have in the 300 gal? Crushed coral? This can trap detrius and cause nitrates. Also there is phosphates in some prepared food ie frozen cubes, flakes, pellets. You may of added really dirty sand to your aquarium.

Sounds like he has, or had, a FO tank but with corals. Sandbeds get really dirty with predatory fish because of the types and ammount of food. They are just plain messy.

Maybe he is overfeeding? You have to find the source of the nitrates and then fix it slowly by water changes, installing a refugium with DSB, or commercial de-nitrators etc. I dont know if those denitrators work all that well so I can't say, I've only heard.