How to lower Nitrates?

[Wayne]

Wow everything mentioned is great advice

For starts as mentioned increase your water changes to weekly till the levels come down and reduce feeding. Then certainly look at bigger skimmers, N/P pellets and cheato to keep the levels down.

How many fish?

[apex82]

Originally Posted by Timbits

what happens if you don't trim the chaeto and just let it grow and get bigger and bigger? is that a bad thing? isn't it the more you have the more nutrients it will absorb?

Bump for this question...

[spawn]

I like vodka,but the last time I mentioned that... it got kinda weird

Originally Posted by Midway

Hi there,

Both of my tanks have high nitrates right now. what are some of the ways you guys keep your nitrates low? or no nitrates at all?

Manny

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by apex82

Bump for this question...

By not downsizing the chaeto ball you will have missed the whole point of growing it. The idea is to use macro algae as a nutrient export mechanism. By not removing any part of the ball you will not be exporting anything.

[apex82]

Thanks! Is there a certain color or part of the ball that I should dispose of? Ie, remove the top half?

[whatcaneyedo]

Just pull part of it off every once and a while and toss it, trade it, sell it, eat it... whatever. Unless part of it looks poor or is dying the mass should look pretty uniform. I sometimes find that I get other types of algae growing on my chaeto mass. So I'll pick that section to throw out.

[octopus-keeper]

These works very well i have one and it works wonders very good product. !!GET ONE!!

[martinmcnally]

I battled with nitrates forever, fed less, changed lights, food, water changes every day etc etc etc.

Vertex Bio Pellets was the answer for me. I tried another brand before that with little success. It took a good 3-4 months but now nitrates are undetectable.