Should I remove my shallow sand bed - issues in tank

[corpusse]

I'm having some issues with both nitrates and phsophates. Nitrates are 20ppm+ and phosphates are .2ppm RO/DI was tested at 0.00 so it's not a water issue.

System is a 180 and a 40 gallon plumbed together + sump. There are currently no fish in the system as I am treating for ich. I have not fed the tank in weeks but cyano is growing like crazy in the 180 only. The 180 has 1" or less of sugar sized sand. Sandbed is about 14 months old. I had to tear the tank completely down to get all the fish out. Stirred everything up, rocks out of the water ect. I hadn't tested phosphates in a while but assumed wrongfully they were okay as I frequently change gfo and my feeding habits have not changed in many years. Nitrates have always been somewhat of an issue despite the fact I only have about 15 fish (2 tangs rest small).

The 40 gallon has never had any cyano issues but it has a haddoni anemone so there is a 6" dsb. The 40 gallon is actually low flow so it's not a flow issue in the 180, lights are all led's so no old bulbs.

I have done a 75 and 85 gallon water change after removing the fish. Neither had much effect other then rising the alkalinity. I can really only make 110 gallons of water max at a time but I am thinking I might just have to get some more barrels and do a 100% water change and just deal with an alk shock.

I have tried nopox and it did not work, but I don't believe this phosphate issue is long term which is perhaps why the nopox did not work. I am perplexed how it's gotten so bad. I grow 2 different kinds of macro in addition to the gfo. I also had a 15 gallon barrel of sand plumbed in which I thought was not helping nitrates but may have actually been keeping the nitrates at about 10ppm as after the barrel developed a small leak and I took it offline they rose.

My fish are going back in november 6th and I'd like to solve this by then. I do have NPS corals I am eventually going to have to feed again too. So I am thinking the SSB might be the issue. I could remove it despite my dislike for bare bottom tanks. Next year I plan on moving and I could deal with the bare bottom until then and just place some sand containers for my wrasses to sleep in.

Otherwise I can try nopox again, maybe give biopellets a try, buy a ton of gfo and start changing it out every 3 days, or more barrels and 100% water change. I welcome any suggestions, I figured the tank would be on cruise control as I worry about controlling ammonia in the tanks my fish are currently in but no such luck.

[Myka]

Fwiw, you can bring alkalinity down with Muriatic acid in your saltwater mixing tub if you want to. It doesn't affect any other parameters. Reducing nutrients via water changes is a slow and expensive process though.

What do you have for a skimmer? What do you use for filtration besides the skimmer? What are you using for powerheads? When yu do a water change, how does the procedure go? Do you simply remove old water and replace with new, or do you vacuum the sand (yes it's possible even with sugar sand, but it sucks) and blow off rocks? To me, it looks like a husbandry issue from the information you provided. Removing the sand bed won't solve husbandry problems, but it would quite likely give you a leap ahead of the problem, and would give you the option of using a coarser sand in the future that is easier to keep clean imo. Enough GFO would solve the PO4 issue, albeit GFO is expensive, and it won't touch the nitrate problem. Biopellets might be a good option for you to help you catch back up to "0", but imo, no tank should need to use biopellets forever.

[corpusse]

Skimmer is an ATI BM 250 yes it's old but still doing a great job. Flow is Jeabo powerheads WP 40's plus the 10 in the anemone tank plus eheim return. I also have a Korillia powerhead covering some dead spots the jeabos dont touch although I suppose I could upgrade that to get a little more flow going. Still I don't think flow is an issue since the low flow tank has no cyano. I don't know how many gph off hand but I do have a nice wave in the tank and LPS / anemones do sway.

I only recently started vacuuming in the sand since I stirred up so much detritus. Otherwise I just blast the rocks and change the water then the filter socks. Filter socks are changed every 3 days or so. Obviously I'm not touching the DSB.

I run carbon and gfo in the dual chamber brs reactor. I have somewhere between 150-250 lbs of live rock. Since it came from different systems I never really weighed it, I feel like if anything I have too much live rock as far as an aquascape standpoint. Most of it's tonga some is fiji. Otherwise I grow Caulerpa in the anemone tank and cheato in the fuge in the sump. I have been vacuuming the sump to stop any detritus build up as well as hair algae which grows likley due to the PC bulb growing the cheato. The cheato itself does still grow pretty clean, just the wires and sides of the fuge get hair algae. Algae other then Cyano is not a problem in the 180.

Prior to taking the fish out and having these problems I typically changed 50 gallons a month. Alk / Cal / Mg is controlled via dosing pumps.

[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]

Yeah, that is a lot of rock, and it looks like you have it leaning against the back glass. My own rockscape "rules" are, don't lean it against the glass, don't go higher than 2/3 the height of the tank, stack it loosely making lots of tunnels and caves so water can flow through it well, and place it so as little as possible is touching the sand. What I mean with the last part is that each stack I make a tripod-style (or quadpod lol) base and then stack the rocks on top so the majority of the rocks are above the sand rather than in it. Creating your rock structures using these guidelines will make keeping your tank clean much, much easier. The corals looks really great in your pic though!

[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.

[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.