Nitrate will not go down...

[whatcaneyedo]

A skimmer doesn't have to cost a lot to work well. Mine was used and I think I paid about 40% what it would have retailed for. Several of your fish are going to outgrow your current setup and their current tank mates but I suspect you might already know that as its already happening. I've never owned a porcupine puffer but the snowflake will eventually be able to eat many of your other fish so I hope you have a plan. You've got just as many fish in your current system as I have in my 240gal system so I'm not at all surprised that you're having nitrate and phosphate issues. My system does quite well with a skimmer rated for 400gal with a similar fish list so you might want to consider that when you decide to upgrade.

[Carandiru]

Yeah the porcupine puffer will only be moved if he gets too big. The snowflake eel however is planned to be moved to a tank downstairs already before he gets aggressive and eats other fish.

I do like DIY but I'm now wondering about a denitrator coil, I might aswell build one of these along with the pvc skimmer. Do they work? The sound so simple to build just wondering if anyone has built one.

[Midway]

Give the algae scrubber a try man, you won't regret it.

[monocus]

i just finished building 2 of them.i won't really know if they are working properly for a couple of weeks.i used 2 ' of 3" pvc pipe,drilled 2 -1/4 " holes on the top for an inlet and outlet and 50' of 1/4" tubing(you don't quite need it all)after a time of coiling the tubing in the pvc(takes time and patience as well as a few attempts without pinching the damn tubing) ,i stuffed it with 10 plastic pot scrubbers bought from the dollar store.the end of the tubing leading from the top i put a micro ball valve to control the flow,and the other hole i stuck in 3' of tubing about a 1/2" in to drain back to my tank.for the next 2 weeks i'm dripping about 2 drips per second and will slowly increase over the next couple of months

[Carandiru]

Ok gonna do the algae turf scrubber on the pipes going from tank to sump will be easy pesy.