Fighting High Nitrates

[Delphinus]

10ppm is nowhere near through the roof. I personally wouldn't sweat it.

The short diatribe I have you though, is that small tanks are nowhere near as good at shedding nitrates as larger tanks. There simply isn't the surface area available to produce the bacterial cultures in sufficient volume to allow consumption to exceed production, short of having no fish in that tank.

One thing you can consider though is a chaeto fuge in a hang-on aquaclear filter lit by 9w PC's. The Coralife 2x9w PC fixture fits perfectly over top an Aquaclear 200 (I think I have the model# right, I'm not sure. One of the middle sized ones, not the really big one). It probably won't bring the NO3 right down to 0, but it would at least help with the reduction..

[raisemyrent]

thanks fro the reply, you're right, 10ppm isn't through the roof, I remember the breaking in days...

I was just surprised to see it higher than before, months after this was over. Either way, I think I will blame it on VERY inconsistent water changes on my behalf, and stick to a weekly schedule now.. I had been low on RO water supply because it had been causing issues wth my building's plumbing etc (haha leaving ladies out of hot water)... so I will be better from now on...

last but not least, does cyano feed on nitrates?

[Delphinus]

Basically yes... Usually a nitrate spike can bring on cyano, but the lovely thing about cyano is that even if NO3 is brought down to 0, it can hang on and linger forever. Sometimes it needs a real kick in the pants to get rid of it (ie. slime remover or lights out).

[raisemyrent]

yup, that's what I did to it, it was coming back overnight until I turned off the llights for a while... I think I will do it again as it seems to be regaining its ground... I will win this one...

unrelated: I nuked an aiptasia the other day with some concentrated kalk, and I actually enjoyed it... is that normal?

[Skimmerking]

if its such a small tank i would be doing 50% then.