nitrate question

[charliethetuna88]

Hey everyone I have a 120 gallon reef tank with mostly lsp and softies I'm movin soon and I need ur opinions I have a nitrate problem its always high I also have a sand bed I'm wondering if I should remove the sand and go bare bottom or sould I add even more sand and make a deeper bed any suggestions would help thanks

 

[KathyC]

Best to replace it entirely and seed it with a cup or 2 of your old sand.

 

[charliethetuna88]

Yeah I tought about that to do u feel the tank would do better with or without the sand kathy and if u say with the sand how deep also I have 2 jumbo engineer gobies who move the sand around all the time I feel like maybe there not givin the sand bed to do what it needs to do the parts they don't move around do develop bubbles and once in a while u can see them releasing so I guess its workin

 

[reefprobe]

How high are your nitrates? Kathys idea sounds good either way..

I would go with a half inch to 3/4 thick

 

[Dre]

Some corals and fish do better with a sandbed .Your nitrate is not high because of the sandbed alone and if you have no substrate at all you can still have high nitrate .Replacing the sand may just be a quick fix and you will be right back with high nitrate in a few months if you are not keeping up with your mentainance and feedings .Many people have sandbeds in there tanks with 0 nitrate .Make larger water changes feed less and if possible add a refugium before you dump all that good stuff.

 

[PIOTR]

Check out Melevsreef.com and vodka dosing

 

[KathyC]

Check out Melevsreef.com and vodka dosing

Trouble with vodka dosing is if you don't keep up and do it correctly you can end up with more headaches.

Dre makes some good points in his post

IMO any tank over a year old that is going to get moved should have the SB replaced. The depth of what you put back in there should be based on your needs and preferences..but mainly based on what you plan to keep. Your engineer gobies require it, not sure if you have any wrasses in there..or might want to get any someday..
You can have it lower in the front and deeper under your aquascaping..maybe 2" in the rear and 1" up front.

If you want a DSB I kinda like them remotely or in a fuge as I think they detract from the appearance in a DT..but that's me
A DSB shouldn't be disturbed, but again, your gobies may have other thoughts about that!

What other fish do you have or plan to have in there?

 

[MatthewScars]

get a RDSB, its really easy. you could literally put the rdsb in a bucket. you need a 5-6" sandbed for nitrate reduction

 

[charliethetuna88]

whats an rdsb

 

[KathyC]

Remote deep sand bed

 

[fripclaksid]

s

 

[Galantra]

Yea i would also agree with a RDSB its alot easier. What you are going to do is get a bucket with a lid that seals close. Drill two holes on the of the bucket one for water to go in and other water out. Fill the bucket up with sand a little bit lower than the holes drilled and place a filter pad on top of the sand( so no lose sand gets pushed out the outlet). and Presto a remote sand bed!

 

[charliethetuna88]

Nice that's a good idea only problem is its going in my living room so I can't have a bucket there

 

[ShaunW]

Define high nitrate, since you can have quite a high reading and still have a very health reef.

Does your sand bed have black spots on it? do you get gas expulsion from the sand bed, i.e. see gas pockets within it? I ask this since a "yes" to these questions means that your DSB is working with the bacteria within breaking nitrate to N gas under microaerophilic/anaerobic conditions. If the answer is "No" then your DSB may not be functioning in a way that bacteria can successfully convert nitrate to nitrogen. Bacteria need low oxygen concentrations to do so.

Phosphate is the parameter that must be low. Nitrate less so.

From my experience a tank that has no sand bed requires very good husbandry skills to keep it successful. You have a lot less room for errors. It also works well for SPS dominated tanks since you can have HUGE amounts of flow with out any sandstorms. The flow removes waste to a filter sock and skimmer. Since you have softies and LPS I would try if you can to stick with a DSB since those corals like less pristine water conditions and require lots of feeding, making the DSB an important part of the system.

 

[ShaunW]

Best to replace it entirely and seed it with a cup or 2 of your old sand.

Agreed.

 

[Simon Garratt]

To add to shaun's exellent comments, i'd also stress the following.

Decide what you want your sand bed to do...do you want it to be a nitrate reducing area or not.

If you do, then idealy you need to remove any agressive sand movers and switch to more passive sand sifters such as cucumbers that will 'gently' work the upper sand layer, without impacting on the fauna thats needed to make the bed function effectively lower down.

Agressive diggers etc constantly disturb the o2 depletion ratios and dont let the bed settle into a consistant rate of diffusion. They also impact on the diversity of the bed, lowering the amount of burrowing action required to free up the sand structure and draw water and nutrients into the bed effectively so they can be broken down to harmless nitrogen.

another words, too much action can be just as bad as too little as far as substrates go 'if' you want them to settle and become effective nutrient converters beyond Amm-N02-No3.

the key, is diversity, stability, and 'gentle' movement to free up the grain structure and prevent it binding which is where your critters and the cucumbers come in.

Regards

 

[charliethetuna88]

my nitrates are like 100 on the chart but my tank is doing real good everything is thriving i do slack on my water changes everyso often and i really need to upgrade my skimmer its to tricky and works well when it feels like it i also feel like i need to add more cheato or better yet calurpra to my refugium im having trouble finding more ,and u guys are def right the gobies i have are hugh and constantly move the sand around the few areas they dont touch produce alotta nitare bubbles so i know it works just need to get ride or the enginer gobies for it to work even better its asame cause they are hugh and ive had them for may years now

 

[ShaunW]

Based on the answer above Simon's advice is perfect.

A reading of 100 is quite high, your on the boarder of failure if not there already. I would be diligent in water changes until you work the system out better, or get rid of the gobies or do a remote DSB (like others have suggested as a temporary fix).

Nothing is better than water changes to act as a band-aid until you can figure out another solution.

 

[charliethetuna88]

Yeah its high weird thing is my tanks doin great as of now but I know I need to lower it I will def add sand and get rid of the gobies when I move the tank

 

[ShaunW]

Sounds like a plan, if it isn't broke............

Speaking hypothetically:
Your corals are probably using the nitrate for energy and hence your observation that "the tank is doing great". Corals are able to bio-assimilate nitrate like bacteria converting the nitrogen atom in nitrate to amino acids among other things. The problem is some organisms are more sensitive to nitrate than others, and the ones that are are going to die first.

Once the do they will become organic waste (a much greater problem than high nitrate) and cause an eventual cascade effect of death once the process has reached a point of no return.

I am sure your tank is fine at the moment and one of the worst things you can do is change things around quickly (the cure is worst than the disease).