Debating on Replacing My Substrate - Need Advice for Nitrates

Nevada Wiseguy

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I am battling nitrates. I got it down to about 48ppm, but it's still a struggle even with constant water changes. My tank is a 32 gallon so I am going extreme now. I am going to pick up 30 gallons of ocean water today and am going to do a 50% water change today and tomorrow. I am also debating on replacing the sand. I went with a mixture of Caribsea Hawaiian black sand and Imaginarium black sand which looks great, but I feel it's part of my nitrate problem.

However, changing the sand I have concerns two fold. One, how I can do it without disturbing the fish too much. Two, am I risking the nitrite cycle getting messed up. For one, I may get a small 10 gallon tank or something to keep the fish in while I do it for the day. I am not sure which sand to get either.

So looking for advice on which sand to get, how can I swap my current sand out and how to avoid crashing my tank while I do it. Everything else is healthy minus the nitrates.

In the tank I am using Chemipure Blue and Seachem Purigen. I also installed a skimmer recently. I did try Seachem's DeNitrate, but I didn't notice any difference. I also have NoPox, but have not had the opportunity to use it past a couple of doses which did not seem to help.
 

PatW

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For substrate, you might just go with a bare bottom initially. Once you get things under control, you can try a sand substrate.

The good thing about water changes, is they are brute force and if the water is good (and the parameters on salinity and alk are close to your system) they can be a good way to solve problems.

I don’t know if you have a sump. But for controlling nitrates, putting some chaeto in the sump with a decent light source can keep nitrates under control.

But you might be able to control nitrate by water changes, skimming and not feeding that much.
 

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Just rinse the sand. Rip clean will fix your problem. This will be a short term fix bc I'm assuming now the substrate is the source of your nitrate battery.

However, long term, you will have to have a source of nitrate consumer in you tank - refugium, ats, or even corals. The reason is that "feeding less" or skimming more will only slow down the accumulation of no3 bc skimmer does NOT export no3. It pulls out disolved organics before they break down to no3. However, skimmer is no where close to 100% so what ever it misses is now stuck in yiur tank waiting to be broken down and accumulate. WC is not a good way to reduce NO3, bc even with weekly 25% WCs, you are leaving 75% of it in the system. And they get absorbed into the pores and substrate to act as the battery. Eventually, the substrate will reach a point where it will leak back out when concentration of no3 in water decrease and yiu and right back where you started. This is why you are having a hard time with seemingly no3 levels that jump right back after you do WC.
 

Reef.

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Why do you believe the sand is the issue? Lack of cleaning?

If that is the reason, clean it! Do a big water change and job done.

Think you are overthinking this.

48 is high but not panic stations, especially if the tank is looking ok.

My guess is the water changes you have been doing have not been that big, as you mentioned you are going to be doing a 50%, now a 50% change should reduce the nitrates by 50%, so around 24.

Then be honest with yourself, how did the nitrates get to 48, not enough water changes? not changing the socks/floss every couple of days? Too many fish etc

Once you know the reason, the fix is easy and keeping the nitrates there will also be easy.
 
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I do not have a sump, this is a biocube 32 to which I am running an Aquamaxx 1.5 HOB Skimmer on. I have about 7 corals in it now that are doing great. I also have about 2 balls of chaeto in the back of the tank after the chemical media. I am also curious if my bioload is too high. I did reduce it by an anemone and a fish, but I still have these in it:

Sand Sifting Star Fish
Firefish Gobi
Niger Trigger
2 Clown Fish
Lawnmower Blenny
Six Line Wrasse
Royal Gramma
Cleanup crew of about 4 or 5 small hermit crabs and 2 larger snails

With the exception of the Trigger and one of the clown fish, all the fish are small.

I may look into doing without the sand for a bit and I may switch away from chemical filtration and going 100% refugium in the back.
 

brandon429

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Here is a full substrate change work example, notice the tap rinsing of any new sand chosen, or old sand removed

no testing and dont buy bottle bac for the job



nitrite no longer factors in reefing, updated cycling science has shown you can skip ever owning the test kit altogether
 
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Nevada Wiseguy

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Why do you believe the sand is the issue? Lack of cleaning?

If that is the reason, clean it! Do a big water change and job done.

Think you are overthinking this.

48 is high but not panic stations, especially if the tank is looking ok.

My guess is the water changes you have been doing have not been that big, as you mentioned you are going to be doing a 50%, now a 50% change should reduce the nitrates by 50%, so around 24.

Then be honest with yourself, how did the nitrates get to 48, not enough water changes? not changing the socks/floss every couple of days? Too many fish etc

Once you know the reason, the fit is easy and keeping the nitrates there will also be easy.
I had about 3 inches of sand initially and then reduced it to about 2 inches. Whenever I do a water change I vaccuum the sand pretty good. Usually my water change is for 5 gallons using natural seawater which given sand, rocks, etc the water volume is less than 32g so it's about a 20% change. I do this once a month, but was doing it twice a month with the same results.

I only think it might be the sand as I went with hawaiin black so I can't see how dirty it actually is. Plus, the imaginarum sand was a bit bigger so its an odd mixture. It looks good, but I feel it may be trapping more than I am seeing.
 

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Apart from the numbers , what are the other indications that suggest high nitrates ? are there any? GHA etc? If the corals and fish are doing good, i would rather suggest ,stick to water changes. Keep replacing sand as the last option.
If the system is healthy, Don't the chase the numbers i would say.
 
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Nevada Wiseguy

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Apart from the numbers , what are the other indications that suggest high nitrates ? are there any? GHA etc? If the corals and fish are doing good, i would rather suggest ,stick to water changes. Keep replacing sand as the last option.
If the system is healthy, Don't the chase the numbers i would say.
Only other indicators is the film algae on the glass. I have no hair algae. I also have some red muck for lack of better terms on some of my tubing. Coraline algae also started growing a couple of months ago finally and its been slowly taking over the back of the tank, which is awesome and I heard is a sign of a healthy tank. Corals are growing well and fish seem to be ok and active.
 
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Nevada Wiseguy

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I should further note that I did have my Kessil a360x lighting on full intensity for a couple of months while I was getting used to it. As of last week I have it operating on a cycle to simulate sunrise, peak day, sunset, etc. I am hoping that will help with the algae some.
 

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I had about 3 inches of sand initially and then reduced it to about 2 inches. Whenever I do a water change I vaccuum the sand pretty good. Usually my water change is for 5 gallons using natural seawater which given sand, rocks, etc the water volume is less than 32g so it's about a 20% change. I do this once a month, but was doing it twice a month with the same results.

I only think it might be the sand as I went with hawaiin black so I can't see how dirty it actually is. Plus, the imaginarum sand was a bit bigger so its an odd mixture. It looks good, but I feel it may be trapping more than I am seeing.

on a nano that water change is on the small side, and if you are only vacuuming with a water change too that will be a big part of the reason.

I would either go to weekly water changes of around 10-15% or fortnightly water changes of 25%-30% cleaning the sand each time.

You can also turkey bast the sand every few days, this gets the detritus into the water column and into the overflow and out of the tank.

Replacing the sand seems overkill here, you will be causing a lot of disturbance and removing a lot of good bacteria When a simple clean would have better results.

Once on top of your parameters you can move to a bit longer intervals between water changes but you need to let your parameters decide when this is, as the tank matures and you fill out with corals this all will help that process.
 

oldmonk

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Only other indicators is the film algae on the glass. I have no hair algae. I also have some red muck for lack of better terms on some of my tubing. Coraline algae also started growing a couple of months ago finally and its been slowly taking over the back of the tank, which is awesome and I heard is a sign of a healthy tank. Corals are growing well and fish seem to be ok and active.
Film of green algae on the glass could be due to the lights also.
Feeding
photoperiod
top up water tds.. these also contribute to nitrates.
 

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You don't need sand and it will only keep causing a problem as it's to bad already and either needs to be changed or removed just blasting it alone won't help see my thread already been there done that 32 biocube
 

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It's became a leach bed happens to dsb all the time that are improperly maintained and only removal or fresh will fix it which is why I used to use play sand as it won't hold anything like arganite does while still giving surface area for bacteria
 
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