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  #1  
Old 09-18-2010, 03:18 PM
reefwars reefwars is offline
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which is also why you cant get rid of it with water changes as fast as your wanting ,like fishytime said your tank is constantly playing catch up and since your never really removing the problem they never go down,if it does more nitrates are produced faster than you can change them out

i would be iffy on having 20 fish in a fully established tank let alone one that hasnt made the 6 mth mark yet.size is a factor of your fish but between a big fish and a lil clown a lil clown still excretes lots of waste may not be as much but waste is waste and your system needs to adjust.thats why i use the rule of thumb of no more than one fish a month ,not that i would buy a fish every month lol because it gives your system a chance to even out and thats your goal is to get things stable, once stable you allow time to pass then you know youve reached "equilibrium" once youve reached that stage you can get another fish but your system has taken a change and now needs to stabilize again and find equilibrium.

personally untill a system establishes(up to a year sometimes more)you should stick with a low amount of fish.20 fish must be hard to feed without feeding the tank and i bet your getting alot of your nitrates there too



go slow milad buddy sit back and wait for your system to establish, youve already got alot of fish and the damage is done so keep up with your routine regular water changes light feedings stop adding stuff to your tank as its not needed (yet) and possibly think of getting rid of a few fish and buy some coral in time your going to have trouble with all those clowns, if they get along now fine but when maturity hits and territorys are getting established the fights are gonna break out and if theres alot of tension your going to end up with disease, and you dont want that.
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Old 09-18-2010, 08:53 PM
SeaHorse_Fanatic SeaHorse_Fanatic is offline
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If there are no corals suffering, I wouldn't worry too much about the nitrate levels being at that level. Fish are not nearly as sensitive to 20ppm nitrates as say sps or some lps corals.

Is your tank mainly fish or is it a mixed reef setup?
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Old 09-18-2010, 10:56 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic View Post
If there are no corals suffering, I wouldn't worry too much about the nitrate levels being at that level. Fish are not nearly as sensitive to 20ppm nitrates as say sps or some lps corals.

Is your tank mainly fish or is it a mixed reef setup?

mixed reef

I haven't lost a coral or anemone yet. im not an expert but the corals seem to be doing fine, a kenya tree i put in a couple months ago is now triple the size, the zoas seem to be growing. my birdsnests are really growing.

Here is the fish list:

Purple tang
mimic tang
yellow tang
powder brown tang
foxface
6 line
yellow coris wrasse
cleaner wrasse
2 cinnimon clowns
2 true percs
2 black occ
2 maroon
2 bagaii cardinals
lawnmower blenny

inverts
cleaner shrimp
Porcelain shrimp
black brittle star
serpent star (which i have idea what happened to, havent seen this guy since i put him in around the time this stuff happened)
tuxedo urchin
black long spine urchin


im not planning on adding anymore fish (most likely will be removing 4 clowns), and I have a shipment of corals coming this weekend and I think I should be set for corals, fish, inverts.
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Old 09-18-2010, 11:14 PM
Ograx Ograx is offline
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I think a big problem is going to be the stuff that is rotting in your rocks and not getting taken out of the system.

If you 've overfed which you stated that you have it takes a long time for all that food to completely decompose and be skimmed and filtered out of the system.

You say you're testing Nitrates at 20 which is after you take into account the nitrates the algae is using to grow.

My recommendation would be to get some rubbermaid bins and take out all rock and wash them off in one bin of saltwater to get all the crud out then leave them in some more bins full of saltwater.

After all rock has been removed siphon the water out of tank while removing all fish and creatures left into another rubbermaid bin.

While siphoning this water into the bins make sure you have some filter floss on end of hose to filter out crud in water.Once you remover all the water down to about 1" inch of the sand you should be good.
( If you remove all the water and vacuum sand you will kill alot of good sand dwellers that you don't wanna kill)

This should clear out almost all of the the rotting stuff you have in there that I believe is giving you these problems.

I have done this multiple times in my 125 6 foot tank and it has been very effective at getting rid of nitrates and phosphates and I have never lost a coral or fish.

The water that I washed the rocks off in by shaking them was nuclear green by the time I washed all the rocks.

I can almost guarantee that by what you've said your problem is rotting food and waste that is not getting taken out the system.It is being left to fully decompose and therefore polluting the tank slowly over a long period of time.

A less effective but easier way to help would be to blast out all your rocks with powerheads and a turkey baster then use some HOB filters with floss or spongers to filter out the stuff you blow out of rocks.After a day or so of use and your water is clear take off filters and garbage floss and rinse out sponges.
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  #5  
Old 09-19-2010, 02:44 AM
steve fedyk steve fedyk is offline
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Time is the best thing for reef tanks. I would keep going on with the redused feeding and keep up with the water changes. That should in time lower your nitrates and po4. It should take about 3-4 mounths to come around at the far end.
The tangs and fox face will pick at the algea.
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