Should I remove my shallow sand bed - issues in tank

[corpusse]

updates : daily water changes of 5-20g removed the cyano but as soon as I stopped it returned. Doing a larger 60g water change did not remove it yesterday. 30ml of nopox is dosed every morning.

Water parameters are now 0.05 for phosphates and 10-25 nitrates from the top or 10 from the side (salifert). Phosphates did reach a low of 0.03 but I've since stirred the sand. It has now been over 2 months since I have fed this tank or a fish has pooped in it. I lost a few sps frags and some lps are not happy about no feedings but everything is more or less okay. While I could run chemiclean to get rid of the cyano I do not want to discontinue skimming for 2 days.

I've added more flow to the fuge in an effort to keep the cheato clean and to encourage it to grow. Caulerpa is growing well in the anemone tank and I've had to prune it several times. My haddoni did move which was a bit of a concern but it seems to have resettled in.

I've got 30 more days to get this under control. Unfortunately some of the saltwater I am making has to go to the fish since they are basically in filterless tanks awaiting the end of the fallow period. Besides being super expensive it's very taxing having to change large amounts of water each and everyday and running my ro/do almost all day everyday. I have changed the filters once I got to 1tds and it's back to 0.

I am hopeful that another 100 gallon water change will reduce the nitrates further and some more small daily removal of the cyano will eliminate that. I am still very worried about a) not getting the nitrates down before I put the fish back. b) keeping them down once the tank starts being fed again.

In my 10 years of reefing I've had some really bad crashes but never anything like this, a relatively simple problem that just won't go away.

[Myka]

Sorry I forgot to revisit this thread when the notifications were down. I'm also not able to see all the "New Posts" either. Annoying, but I digress...

Could you post a pic of your tank so I have an idea of your rock work? I'm thinking you could probably use removing some rock. The reason why you're struggling so bad is because the nitrate and phosphate get absorbed into the rock and sand beds, and as you change the water more leeches out. This is why I suggested biopellets.

One of my clients' tanks when I first start with the tank was around 750 ppm NO3 and 2.5 ppm PO4. The tank is now just under 100 ppm and 0.25 ppm respectively. This is from using biopellets. The system is about 250 gallons and is in a high rise office building, so there isn't much space. I can only do 20 gallon water changes. I started off by removing the rocks, scrubbing them down to remove detritus and massive amounts of hair algae, cyano, and even dinoflagellates. I did half the tank one week, and half the tank the other week. I vacuumed the sand too (~3"). I cleaned the skimmer up and the sump. Weekly maintenance included pulling out clumps of hair algae, sand vacuuming, filter pad change, and then it was just a waiting game. I didn't do anything special, and I didn't do ANY big water changes. My point is, biopellets work very well in these sorts of situations.

If you choose to use biopellets, there are a few things that I've found make a big difference. Choose a recirculating reactor so that you can control the effluent to just a trickle (too fast and the biopellets are too aggressive). Place the effluent hose so that it goes into the skimmer. Start off with 1/3 the amount of biopellets the instructions say to use, and don't add more until 4-5 weeks in as it takes about 3-4 weeks for new biopellets to start working.

[corpusse]

That's okay. The whole situation is frustrating. I've actually been thinking about the rock and maybe it's just time to be acid washed or replaced. The majority of the rock I've had almost 10 years. It's always been in use in a reef. Some of it I purchased about 5 or 6 years ago and removed it from my octopus / cuttlefish tank when I switched over to garden eels so while not in a reef it was always in a running functional tank.

The rock in the anemone tank was not always in use but I cured it, made sure no nitrates before adding it but we are talking about 10-15% total volume of rock perhaps less. I really don't have a total weight of the rock because it's gone through several tanks and been with me for up to 10 years.



Things are nowhere near as nice these days but the amount of rock has not change. Aquascape is different because I had to tear the tank down to catch the fish but other then a few lost corals the amount has not changed.

The tank on the left is NOT connected to the system. It's my garden eel tank which is like one big fuge. I moved some of my fish into there and the rest are in QT systems.

[corpusse]

Also as far as biopellet reactors, what about just using a small pump? Recirculating ones seem to be very pricey. I'm not saying I can't do it but if I am going to spend that much I could just get a nitrate reactor.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by corpusse

Also as far as biopellet reactors, what about just using a small pump? Recirculating ones seem to be very pricey. I'm not saying I can't do it but if I am going to spend that much I could just get a nitrate reactor.

Well, if you didn't do all those big water changes you'd be halfway to buying a recirculating reactor. The problem is that you need a fair bit of flow to keep the biopellets churning otherwise they clump up. Ime, you don't want that much flow going through the biopellets. See what you can find for a used reactor. The one I use is a Reef Dynamics biopellet reactor. I bought it used at a fraction of the cost - they are pricey.

[corpusse]

You should see the piles of salt boxes I have in the basement

It doesn't hurt to try, I will remove 1/3rd of the the rock. Most is attached via acrylic rods but is still leaning on back glass to prevent falling. I have read the aquascaping thread on reef central many dozens of times but I can never achieve anything too great.. Of course over time corals get huge and almost anything looks good.

Maybe the rock is just spent, as mentioned old tanks have crashed, some of it is dense compared to a lot of the rock these days. Most of it is Tonga rock the rest is Fiji I believe.

Reef Pilot I will check out your journal. Ram3500 I am dosing 30ml of nopox which does contain vinegar I'm not sure if just vinegar would be better but I can always try it in a month. I might as well at least try the nopox until I run out again. I have a dosing pump so its very easy for me to dose. I have been dosing the nopox manually only because I want to check the tank every morning for cyano.

I will update the thread again after I make some changes. Thanks everyone.

[Myka]

I use vinegar in kalkwasser and add it through a doser. I don't use it for nutrient lowering reasons, I use it to make the kalk more concentrated. It definitely affects the PO4 and NO3. That's an option too. I dose BioDigest as well. Biopellets I think are simpler and easier for long-term.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by corpusse

Also as far as biopellet reactors, what about just using a small pump? Recirculating ones seem to be very pricey. I'm not saying I can't do it but if I am going to spend that much I could just get a nitrate reactor.

I just use the regular bio pellet reactor (Vertex) and works great for me. Only have to add bio pellets about once a year or longer,... don't touch it otherwise. Don't even use a separate pump for it, just T'ed off my return line and keep the flow low enough to keep the pellets slowly tumbling.

I have a very old tank (that I inherited when we bought our current house) and it had very high phosphates and nitrates (100 ppm) to start off. Gradually got everything under control, with phosphate and nitrates now consistently at or near zero. Oh, and I never have cyano any more.

If you have time, browse through my journal to see what worked for me.

[Myka]

One thing I'd like to experiment with is using a much smaller amount of biopellets with higher flow (like non-recirculating). You may be able to achieve the same thing. I haven't tried it.

The issues people run into is running too many biopellets, too much flow, too high alkalinity (an issue only when the nutrients become very low), and clumping from not enough flow.

[Ram3500]

Have you ever considered dosing vinegar ? I struggled with keeping nitrates and phosphates low for years. I have used bio pellets in the past they work but I always ran into issues with clumping or a clogged pump slowing down flow to the reactor. If you don't already have dosser you can pick up a jebao dosing pump for under $100 they work great and Vinegar is cheap. I have been dosing vinegar for about six month now and my nitrates and phosphates are mostly undetectable. I don't even run gfo anymore .

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