Ammonia and nitrate problem persisting

[k_dog345]

Hey guys.

Here's my scenario. My equipment is a biocube 14, with a protein skimmer running and no other filters.

I've had high nitrates for close to three weeks now (about 40 ppm). I've done one partial water change once a week, and have double dosed seachem prime on each water change. I've even thrown in a bit of prime when I does my calcium and alkalinity.

I recently bought a goby to clean the sand up in the back of the tank where I cannot reach. He sure made a mess! I'm seeing grayish particles that have collected on all my rock, and power heads after the sand storm settled from the goby.

Now my ammonia is at 0.50 (was 0) and nitrates at 20 ppm (lower).

I've considered replacing my sand bed, because I believe it is over two years old. You can see my thread on this here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/Changing-the-sand-bed..230815/

I'm also thinking of doubling up on my water changes to twice a week until I see lower toxic levels. If the levels settle I may skip replacing the sand bed since it sounds to be such a danger to the life in my tank.

What do you guys think?

 

[brandon429]

the ammonia reading is off, google "api gives false ammonia reading"

its about 20 pages of 10 link returns on the matter, so disregard the ammonia. the life in the tank is a more reliable indicator, and its zero. your fish would be panting at the top and all corals closed. one potential source for true ammonia is disturbing that sandbed, so if you had disturbed it a short spike will be quickly mitigated by the amount of nitrifiers in that tank, no way will the tank allow .5 to persist past 24 hours, fully cycled tanks can digest up to 5 ppm or better in that time, .5 is a cinch. its hard to not trust certain tests, we were told they are gold. your CBS cannot live in true free ammonia water, even .25

If you want to change the sandbed, we sure can, easily. the tank looks great I cant see any problems w current bed...nice tank!!! If heading off nitrates was the goal, yes the sandbed is the largest source in the tank.

 

[WetWhistle]

Unless you are having issues like an algae bloom and it doesn't look like you are I would leave the sand bed. Your numbers are not that high to warrant a big change like that. In fact you could cause an issue where none exists if you remove it. Just keep up on your water changes and watch what you add into the tank that can break down and decay. As your corals get larger and the tank matures it will be able to process your waste. Don't chase a number of what you think it should be at as 20 ppm is not that bad unless it is causing an issue. At 2 years your bed is fine still, mine is over 20 with no issues so don't worry about the age. Unless you see clumping of the substrate you don't need to disturb it.

 

[brandon429]

the goby cannot clean a sandbed, they merely cast things up into the water where we or our filters get them. if not, wastes fall back down and become part of the ever-growing sink along with goby solid waste put directly into the bed. Although top sifters are excellent at keeping diatoms/cyano and low level invasions under control as they do mechanical work/actually eat some of the invaders, they contribute to the overall waste sink in a tank and never lower it. Manual removal is the only way it gets out, or some let all the waste proteins break down in the tank and deal with it via media adsorbtion or through plant filters like ATS or refugia. In my old nano, I rip clean that sandbed. it holds no nitrate for me.

No issues can be caused by reintroducing this sand bed as clean and not full of nitrates, although fearing disturbance is more common and the masses will typically let them build up forever. We have strong repeating data on how well and how long nanos live that practice the hands off routine, about 3 yrs max.

Your 10 year -nano- setups are behaving markedly different. One day you will have to deal with the bed, now or later, and if you need to we can change it out without loss. while its true that dealing with an aged sandbed is a cycle risk, keeping it that way only builds up larger risk, its an ever-increasing scale.

To arrest it, you simply have to move your live rocks into one bucket of water, your fish and corals and shrimp into another, then attack that sand.

Put it back in so rinsed that clouding is impossible, you'll keep its filtration abilities and lose the mud death. by rinsing I mean 1000% rinsed, zero ability to cloud even if you lift up nine handfuls underwater and drop them back down. The result will be a perfectly filtering sandbed with no waste, able to store up till next couple years.

then you restock, cleaning out those rocks of detritus before the go back in, rescape all new. no recycle sand cleaning.

 

[WetWhistle]

It really comes down to personal preference to remove it or not and how good of upkeep you have kept up on it. But really why change something if you are not having that bad an issue and your decision based on the premise I will have to do it one day. (Quite common thought process) To me unless you are having an issue leave it. If your levels were at 100 ppm and you could not get them down, I could understand it. But if not you are tinkering for the sake of tinkering in my opinion.

 

[brandon429]

I quoted 5-20 ppm nitrate the other day on a thread where the poster was massively concerned about reading 2ppm and they were willing to go through mass revisions to get it to half a ppm

thankfully my systems tolerate some nitrate and po4 if I get lazy, they never have any effect on anything in my tank if I had to guess my current levels id pose about 10 ppm nitrate prob. heavy feeder.

 

[tankstudy]

Was the ammonia spike before or after your new addition?

 

[k_dog345]

Thank you all so much for the replies! From the responses I think my best course of action is the following:
- perform a partial water change on Wednesday and continue to dose prime
- check nitrates on Sunday, if they are still high, rinse the sand bed by removing all live stock and rocks, then rinsing the sand until there is no clouding

Sounds like my problem is not as bad as I thought, but I know that sand bed is old and the fact my goby stirred up all that greyish muck is a strong indicator to me that I need to do some deep cleaning on my substrate.

 

[brandon429]

just to be detailed on the cleaning, it is indeed the riskiest thing you can do to and for a tank

its all about correction and catch up. I fully, totally and completely understand not doing anything and continuing, the tank looks nice. you have no algae problems, clearly you are exporting the dissolved waste compounds before primary producers are grabbing them...its that inevitability I can't get past. The bed wont get cleaner this year, even if you up water changes handling the dissolved waste cast into the water. Its not currently leaking waste at a bad rate, but its on an increasing scale and there's no way to ever decrease it without getting greasy and dirty in the tank, one day.

Right now is the point the masses start using GFO, to cover up the leak. I think the direction you are thinking is the non bandaid option, and its reef surgery too, needs to be done in careful order.

little planning details matter if you are going to get hands deep

for example, you could siphon out most of your water totally untouched into the holding bucket for the fish and corals, vs a new container of all new sw. that was a no acclimation fist step. the live rock can be moved into a container of all new mixed sw matching only temp and salinity, it wont die from calcium pH and minor alk differences.

Then when you are left with corals and fish in safe water elsewhere, and live rock in a -separate bin-, you literally just have a tank of sand and what water was left. attack. your only risk is NOT rinsing enough, and leaving a little poison in the sand. pls take pics of all this and post!!

when you are truly, truly rinsed clean (you can even tank the tank down all the way and scrape out the inside with a razor and vinegar, this can be a full cleaning you are already in it) you fill tank back up halfway with new water and this wonderful reset sand. put the rest of your old tank water back in, move animals, enjoy sandbed perfection for another round

as cavalier thing as that is to recommend for someone to do to their tank, the best I can do is do it to mine, over and over:
http://reef2reef.com/threads/lets-d...ndefinite-reef-life-span.222105/#post-2561119

im hinting in the thread that the reason my one gallon silly tank is much older than most 180s posted here is due to the way I treat it oppositely regarding detritus

 

[k_dog345]

just to be detailed on the cleaning, it is indeed the riskiest thing you can do to and for a tank

its all about correction and catch up. I fully, totally and completely understand not doing anything and continuing, the tank looks nice. you have no algae problems, clearly you are exporting the dissolved waste compounds before primary producers are grabbing them...its that inevitability I can't get past. The bed wont get cleaner this year, even if you up water changes handling the dissolved waste cast into the water. Its not currently leaking waste at a bad rate, but its on an increasing scale and there's no way to ever decrease it without getting greasy and dirty in the tank, one day.

Right now is the point the masses start using GFO, to cover up the leak. I think the direction you are thinking is the non bandaid option, and its reef surgery too, needs to be done in careful order.

little planning details matter if you are going to get hands deep

for example, you could siphon out most of your water totally untouched into the holding bucket for the fish and corals, vs a new container of all new sw. that was a no acclimation fist step. the live rock can be moved into a container of all new mixed sw matching only temp and salinity, it wont die from calcium pH and minor alk differences.

Then when you are left with corals and fish in safe water elsewhere, and live rock in a -separate bin-, you literally just have a tank of sand and what water was left. attack. your only risk is NOT rinsing enough, and leaving a little poison in the sand. pls take pics of all this and post!!

when you are truly, truly rinsed clean (you can even tank the tank down all the way and scrape out the inside with a razor and vinegar, this can be a full cleaning you are already in it) you fill tank back up halfway with new water and this wonderful reset sand. put the rest of your old tank water back in, move animals, enjoy sandbed perfection for another round

as cavalier thing as that is to recommend for someone to do to their tank, the best I can do is do it to mine, over and over:
http://reef2reef.com/threads/lets-d...ndefinite-reef-life-span.222105/#post-2561119

im hinting in the thread that the reason my one gallon silly tank is much older than most 180s posted here is due to the way I treat it oppositely regarding detritus

Thanks for your very informative replies! I will be back on this post this weekend to show you guys how my sand bed cleaning went. From this I think I really need to do this cleaning. I should've done it when I bought the tank used. No telling how long the previous owners had gone without cleaning the sand or replacing it. Little scary though....

So Brandon, what is the method to actually rinsing the sand? Sifting it out and rinsing with rodi? Perhaps put the sand in a strainer? What do you do?

 

[brandon429]

K dog I hope you will document! I want to post something before you start. This will seem like punishment reading we wouldn't give our worst enemy but it's not intended:

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/3695...insing-live-sand-before-use-rinsing-all-sand/

You need to see the perspectives of those who claim you should not touch your bed before starting. Leaving sandbeds alone to store perpetually is the heart of our hobby, not easily reversed, that thread has strong kickback to what you are about to do. I will link your thread there as well, before we even know the outcome = accountability. Your documentation will help tremendously as many people have to get into their beds for reasons other than preventative work. They may be moving, upgrading, going bare bottom etc.

I rinsed mine in tap, you don't have to, you can use saltwater for the utmost gentle rinse on the bac. The thread has volumous detail as to why tap water rinsing for a couple mins followed by a flush out with saltwater isn't a big deal, but since we're already breaking nine core reef rules how about rinse in sw

If your tank was mine I'd put the sand in a five gallon bucket and go blast it with hose out front over and over till no waste. Dump out that tap water, rinse back out with saltwater, put it all back together no cycle. You could use ten or so gallons of made saltwater in place of tap, it may take more. We want a rinse so harsh that zero clouding is possible afterwards. Amazingly, there are still plenty of bac on your sand grains after either mode

 

[Elegance Coral]

I hope I can avoid a flame war here.
I do not agree with the advice you've been given. The tank pictured above IS in trouble. The algae growth on the back wall and power heads, is a bad sign. The bleached, withdrawn, and sickly, looking corals point to an even bigger problem. Even your test results confirm there's a serious problem. If something isn't done, the system will continue on the path it's been on, continue to get worse, and animals will die.

The good thing about nano tanks is that they can be turned around quickly, and with little effort, or expense.

The root problem is the accumulation of excess nutrients. Not just in the open water where they can be detected by test kits, but in the substrate as well. (sand and rock) To turn this system around we need to address both the water and the substrate.

Rinsing the sand and returning it to the system will not accomplish your goal. PO4 adsorbs onto the surface of calcium carbonate. Your sand bed provides massive surface area for the adsorption of PO4. This PO4 can not be liberated simply by rinsing the substrate. However, it can be liberated through biological and/or chemical processes within the system. So, once this sand is returned to the system, it can provide free PO4 that can go on to fuel algae growth and cause problems for stony corals. IMHO, this sand is toast. For a 14 gallon biocube, we're talking about a $20 bag of sand. It's not worth the fight. I would simply trash this sand.

The odds of a sand sifting goby surviving long term in a 14 gallon is very, very, very slim. I would return it to the LFS, and run BB for a period of time.

As I've said, the nutrient issue is in your rock, sand, and water. Trashing the sand eliminates those nutrients held by the sand. Now you're left with the LR and water. A LARGE water change, performed properly, will solve the immediate nutrient issue within the water. Now you're left with the LR. Due to the excessive nutrient level, there will be an abundance of organic material, and bacteria within the LR. A good rinse and maybe a little cleaning, will eliminate much of the excessive organic matter. As with the sand, it will do little for the PO4 adsorbed onto its surface. Now we're left with the bacteria in the LR. The large population of bacteria have been fueled by the excessive nutrient level. After eliminating the excessive nutrients, both in the water and sand, there will be fewer nutrients available to support this population. Microbes will begin to die. With adequate flow and maybe the occasional blasting of the rocks, many of these dead microbes will fall from the rocks as detritus. If you run the system BB for a period of time, this detritus will be easily visible on the bottom of the tank, and easily siphoned out during water changes. Before these microbes die, they will be liberating PO4 from the rock, and incorporating it into their tissues. When they're siphoned from the system, this PO4 will also be removed. In time, the amount of detritus shedding from the rock will decrease, as the population of microbes, and total nutrient levels, decrease. At this point, the system will be much healthier, the overall nutrient level will be greatly reduced, and clean sand can be returned to the system.

I do have one question. Are you using tap water? If so, I'd switch to RO/DI water and discontinue the use of Prime.

 

[brandon429]

no flame war at all, we relish the various inputs.



this poster needs to see all pros and cons before beginning, for sure.

 

[Lynn52]

Adding prime will make your ammonia test look like the levels are higher than they are in all test kits except the SeaChem

 

[brandon429]

Nice call



even if no prime was used here, its become so much more reliable to go off benthic organism testing for live ammonia over any low level readings from entry level ammonia kits of any name


prime jacks with nitrite readings too


I thought the post above about live rock leaching out detritus was smart, accurate. I think the pre rinsed bed is able to deal with that repeat cleaning better, should they input the sand right after the rinse. Your idea of keeping it bare bottom for a while is a fine changeup, harmless and great detailing imo. The reason I didn't mind if he puts sand back in is because the detritus contributions from other areas (fauna) still had to be cleaned, and whether sand prevents that is the reason people go bare bottom permanently.

 

[Elegance Coral]

I wasn't trying to insinuate that this system couldn't be turned around with the sand in it. Especially after the organic matter had been rinsed away. It is absolutely doable that way.

My concern is for the animals in the system now. They are already in distress. It takes time to liberate PO4 from calcium carbonate within a reef system. Time that some of these animals may not have.

The relationship between PO4, calcium carbonate, and the open water of the system, is one of equilibrium. If we place calcium carbonate, laden with PO4, into reef tank water that contains very little PO4, PO4 will be liberated from the calcium carbonate into the water, until an equilibrium is reached. Once in the water, our animals are exposed to it, it's available to organisms like microbes and algae, and naturally, our filters have a chance to remove it. Many of these organisms like microbes and algae cells, have very short lives. They die, decompose, and release their PO4 back into the water once again. Once in the water, it can be readsorbed onto calcium carbonate, utilized by other organisms, or removed by filtration. This PO4 can bounce around within the system for a long period of time before water changes and filtration can bring the PO4 down to acceptable levels. But it can be done. My question is, why should the OP invest in PO4 filtration and/or water changes to combat this PO4 over an extended period of time, and exposing his pets to it, when it can be dealt with in an instant simply by trashing a $20 bag of sand?

Peace
EC

 

[brandon429]

I fully support that

clearly am only used to defending the initial cleaning run heh

Had to reread to see the heart of your post: what you refill with, and when if at all, should be substrates never introduced to waste at all. The whole point of this risk in delving in was to address nutrients, shore up all pathways for them by using non exposed po4 substrates.

extremely helpful post there. took cleaning a step +1

 

[k_dog345]

Okay, having a hard time following these replies. But maybe now I'm thinking I should just replace the sand bed? Like I've said before. That bed is old...I don't even know how long that sand has been in the tank because I bought it used.....

So what my thoughts are now is that I should just remove the sand, rinse the rock dang good and replace everything with a whole new sand bed?

 

[chefjpaul]

Okay, having a hard time following these replies. But maybe now I'm thinking I should just replace the sand bed? Like I've said before. That bed is old...I don't even know how long that sand has been in the tank because I bought it used.....

So what my thoughts are now is that I should just remove the sand, rinse the rock **** good and replace everything with a whole new sand bed?

If I were you, I would follow both of their advice. Great points.

Trash sand bed for the length of time required to breakout the PO4 from the rocks, after a good scrub.

It's going to take awhile as the excess phosphate is bound inside rock.

GFO....? I would in small amounts after a test and no sand.

That way you can monitor and clean all the garbage coming out of the rocks without the buildup occurring in the sand again.

Keep up with water changes for the immediate.

Return clean sand at a later date after no more po4 issues from rocks.

 

[brandon429]

Yep I agree. He was pointing out that the exposure time between the sandbed and the po4 before the cleanup allowed the grains to complex a little extra waste (into the matrix of the sand grain, not as a scum layer on the outside like the obvious detritus) and that a new bag of sand is a cleaner start. It's taking clean up a notch.

The bacteria that remain on your current sand are not the breakpoint for your filtration, the live rock has an abundance of filtration ability. If you'll buy wet pack Fiji pink sand or ocean direct those are claimed to have pre bac too

Not that I've tested them, but it's hard to keep bacteria out of wet solutions, not hard to keep in, so it makes sense to me. There are already formal studies that show bottle bacteria as valid up to the expiration date, plus hundred thousand bottle cycle posts, so a company claiming to have put some in a wet bag of sand is no stretch. When you get the new sand, pre rinse it just the same not for waste but for super fine dusty silt that can cloud up your tank there is no need to keep it. As with the prior plan, rinsing is not antibacterial it's just simply exporting either waste or silt and the bulk of the system runs off the live rock anyway. When in holding, clean out that live rock well of any detritus by shaking nicely or pouring saltwater across the live rocks with good force

I think you will like this cleanup either path taken. I believe based on a large scale tank takedown and reboot thread posted by our friend reef knight couple mos ago that you should hold your fish and shrimp in a holding container separate from the live rock. Then when the live rock has its initial detritus cleaning it's ok to put back in with fish and shrimps as you put the tank back together. He had live rock and fish in a single holding bucket and his live rock was dirty enough with waste that it that it may have killed some of his fish. This was a drastic plugged rock scenario for him after years of build up so yours isn't as dangerous, but it's still wise to be separate until cleaned.

EC was reminding that even after your initial rock cleaning while it's all parted out, it will still expel some detritus a while after its setup, and you should export/change water assertively during that time to guide it all back out. He's saying I think that your true cleaned state will take a while to attain after this rip clean; as the rock purges and you remove waste, also contributed by fish etc, you are restoring porosity and water passage within the rocks and only good becomes of that. That recommend is exactly why getting many opinions is wise, it's taking your clean up a notch. Using your rinsed old sand wouldn't have killed your tank, but using new clean sand is simply a step up in cleaning quality having done all this careful work.