HELP with Mantis Tank, levels not going down no matter what I try.

[iwnltom]

Hi, I have a 40 gallon tank, and a box filter (photos below). In my filter I have sponges, Rowa, and Carbon. I also dose carbo through a Phosban Reactor. I do weekly water changes, and change the filter contents every 2 weeks. No matter what I do, the levels will not go down, and if they do, they come back up within a couple days. I don’t over feed, and barely have any fish. (Only had 1 until I bought a few more 2 days ago thinking I solved the problem). I cannot get a sump as my tank is tempered and I just ordered a brand new 100 gallon with sump and everything for a reef tank. I just want the Mantis tank to do better as Il keep it just for him. If anyone has any ideas what I can buy or do to help the quality of my tank I’d appreciate it. Thanks

 

[iwnltom]

Hi, I have a 40 gallon tank, and a box filter (photos below). In my filter I have sponges, Rowa, and Carbon. I also dose carbo through a Phosban Reactor. I do weekly water changes, and change the filter contents every 2 weeks. No matter what I do, the levels will not go down, and if they do, they come back up within a couple days. I don’t over feed, and barely have any fish. (Only had 1 until I bought a few more 2 days ago thinking I solved the problem). I cannot get a sump as my tank is tempered and I just ordered a brand new 100 gallon with sump and everything for a reef tank. I just want the Mantis tank to do better as Il keep it just for him. If anyone has any ideas what I can buy or do to help the quality of my tank I’d appreciate it. Thanks

I dose ROWA through the reactor, not Carbon as I mistakenly wrote in the post ^

 

[Reefing Qs]

Welcome! A few questions:

by levels, which do you mean? Nitrate and Phosphate or other parameters?

Which brand test kits are you using?

How new/old is the tank?

 

[iwnltom]

Welcome! A few questions:

by levels, which do you mean? Nitrate and Phosphate or other parameters?

Which brand test kits are you using?

How new/old is the tank?

Hi, the tank is 7 months old, I mean the phosphate and nitrates. I use the Hannah checkers and have them all.

 

[Reefing Qs]

Hi, the tank is 7 months old, I mean the phosphate and nitrates. I use the Hannah checkers and have them all.

What are the readings you are getting for both? Are the results consistent (high or low doesn't matter yet) or do you keep getting different numbers?

 

[iwnltom]

What are the readings you are getting for both? Are the results consistent (high or low doesn't matter yet) or do you keep getting different numbers?

Consistently high, but yes I get different numbers very often

 

[Reefing Qs]

Consistently high, but yes I get different numbers very often

Sorry I don't think I am being specific enough. I am trying to determine if the error is with your tests, or if the numbers are staying high despite you adding nutrient removal media and performing water changes. Is it just phosphate that is high, just nitrate, or both?

Can you list the last few test results you have taken for Nitrate and Phosphate? an example:

July 3 10ppm nitrate and .05ppm phosphate
July 10 10ppm nitrate and .05ppm phosphate
July 17 10ppm nitrate and .05ppm phosphate
July 24 10ppm nitrate and .05ppm phosphate

Are you dosing anything in to the system? What do you feed and how often?

 

[iwnltom]

no it isn’t my tests, I’m not home right now and my notebook is there, but yes my nitrates and phosphates are consistently high, last time u checked and did 3 days in a row of water changes my phosphates were like 4.2 which is extremely high, and my nitrates were extremely high as well, close to toxic. I feed frozen shrimp ever 3-4 days and some times if he eats a turbo snail I won’t feed for a week. Everything is high, and my corals are not doing well, after a water change and adding some phosguard it does well for 1-3 days, my corals do well, then after max 3 days it returns to poor water quality. Thank you for taking the time I appreciate it. Been doing everything and buying everything I can to try and fix this issue. I’m dosing nothing in my filter besides 2 bags of ROWA, 2 bags of Carbon, and in the last week I did 40ml of a nitrate and phosphate remover a day for 3 days in a row, this helped a lot, but after 3-4 days it started going very high again.

 

[Reefing Qs]

Ok understood, thanks for the details. I know mantis tanks are notorious for having nutrient issues, but something very strange is going on here - I would try to purchase and test with a manual test kit to confirm your results or bring it to a LFS and have them test for you.

Are you using the light green Hanna "Phosphate ULR (ultra low range)" tester or just "Phosphate" (not ULR). In either case, neither of these are able to read 4.2ppm phosphate. The non-ULR variant can read up to 2.5ppm, but that is still far below the readings you are getting. I would not trust a reading this high/out of range.

Just to confirm, you are adding 10ml of tank water to the cuvette, taking the C1 sample, adding the reagent and mixing for the requisite amount of time, then press + hold the test button to start the timer, which then takes the reading after the timer ends?

For the nitrate test, do you recall any of the numbers other than them being near toxic?

When you say your numbers go down, but then back up after a couple days - how low do they actually get? Back to "normal" ranges or still very high?

Beyond that - is anything DEAD in the tank? Big chunks of leftover meat from a meal? Fish or snail carcass that you may not be aware of? Is there any ammonia reading from the tank?

 

[iwnltom]

Ok understood, thanks for the details. I know mantis tanks are notorious for having nutrient issues, but something very strange is going on here - I would try to purchase and test with a manual test kit to confirm your results or bring it to a LFS and have them test for you.

Are you using the light green Hanna "Phosphate ULR (ultra low range)" tester or just "Phosphate" (not ULR). In either case, neither of these are able to read 4.2ppm phosphate. The non-ULR variant can read up to 2.5ppm, but that is still far below the readings you are getting. I would not trust a reading this high/out of range.

Just to confirm, you are adding 10ml of tank water to the cuvette, taking the C1 sample, adding the reagent and mixing for the requisite amount of time, then press + hold the test button to start the timer, which then takes the reading after the timer ends?

For the nitrate test, do you recall any of the numbers other than them being near toxic?

When you say your numbers go down, but then back up after a couple days - how low do they actually get? Back to "normal" ranges or still very high?

Beyond that - is anything DEAD in the tank? Big chunks of leftover meat from a meal? Fish or snail carcass that you may not be aware of? Is there any ammonia reading from the tank?

I’m going to do the tests again when I get home, but yes I have also done manual tests and are always very high. I remove the snail shells as I can, but a lot are brought into his den with him, I still try to remove them but it’s very hard without taking apart the whole habitat. The readings never get normal, they are alwyas relatively high, nothing has died in the tank, and it actually looks quite healthy most of the time, I can just tell because my corals or the harder to maintain one’s close up a lot when the tank is unhealthy which is what inhibits me to redo my tests in the first place more often then I naturally would. I have had the same fish for 7 months and nothing has died. I will send you the results when I do them again tonight, but I really fear the results as it’s looking worst then it has in a while and I did a 50% water change 4 days ago… since you’ve mentioned the snail shells I think that could be apart of the issue, but the only shells I see r just that of shells. Nothing inside them or any dead pieces unless they are buried in his burrow and I don’t see them. Do you reccomemd I take apart the burrow and dig around to see what shells I can find? I did this about a month ago and it stunk, even though I could not find anything. Is there another way to get rid of rotting substance inside the tank besides physically digging them out ? Because I cannot seem to find anything and I look pretty throuroughly (besides empty shells with no meat inside)

 

[iwnltom]

I’m going to do the tests again when I get home, but yes I have also done manual tests and are always very high. I remove the snail shells as I can, but a lot are brought into his den with him, I still try to remove them but it’s very hard without taking apart the whole habitat. The readings never get normal, they are alwyas relatively high, nothing has died in the tank, and it actually looks quite healthy most of the time, I can just tell because my corals or the harder to maintain one’s close up a lot when the tank is unhealthy which is what inhibits me to redo my tests in the first place more often then I naturally would. I have had the same fish for 7 months and nothing has died. I will send you the results when I do them again tonight, but I really fear the results as it’s looking worst then it has in a while and I did a 50% water change 4 days ago… since you’ve mentioned the snail shells I think that could be apart of the issue, but the only shells I see r just that of shells. Nothing inside them or any dead pieces unless they are buried in his burrow and I don’t see them. Do you reccomemd I take apart the burrow and dig around to see what shells I can find? I did this about a month ago and it stunk, even though I could not find anything. Is there another way to get rid of rotting substance inside the tank besides physically digging them out ? Because I cannot seem to find anything and I look pretty throuroughly (besides empty shells with no meat inside)

Thanks again, I appreciate it

 

[Reefing Qs]

I’m going to do the tests again when I get home, but yes I have also done manual tests and are always very high. I remove the snail shells as I can, but a lot are brought into his den with him, I still try to remove them but it’s very hard without taking apart the whole habitat. The readings never get normal, they are alwyas relatively high, nothing has died in the tank, and it actually looks quite healthy most of the time, I can just tell because my corals or the harder to maintain one’s close up a lot when the tank is unhealthy which is what inhibits me to redo my tests in the first place more often then I naturally would. I have had the same fish for 7 months and nothing has died. I will send you the results when I do them again tonight, but I really fear the results as it’s looking worst then it has in a while and I did a 50% water change 4 days ago… since you’ve mentioned the snail shells I think that could be apart of the issue, but the only shells I see r just that of shells. Nothing inside them or any dead pieces unless they are buried in his burrow and I don’t see them. Do you reccomemd I take apart the burrow and dig around to see what shells I can find? I did this about a month ago and it stunk, even though I could not find anything. Is there another way to get rid of rotting substance inside the tank besides physically digging them out ? Because I cannot seem to find anything and I look pretty throuroughly (besides empty shells with no meat inside)

Gotcha. I still worry about the reading you are getting from your Hanna testers as it is WAY out of the accuracy range of the device. However, if manual tests are also returning extremely elevated levels we'll have to assume it is somewhat accurate, at minimum way too high for our purposes.

Frankly, I am surprised any type of coral is alive still but it sounds like even the most hardy of your corals are struggling, which would make sense at these levels. Let's make a plan to tackle the issue.

Unfortunately, I do not see any other course of action than to rip apart the rockwork for a complete, thorough cleaning. When you say "stunk" - do you mean an algae/exposed rock smell or was it a death smell? I would remove and inspect every single shell you can find, churn/siphon the sand in his burrow, move all the rocks if needed to completely clean the tank. THEN, siphon the water for a fairly large 25-30% water change. Continue to use the correct amount of GFO for your water volume. Wait 24 hours, then test again.

Unless we don't have the whole story, with how little you are feeding, something is dead/dying/decaying in the tank and causing such high nutrient levels. The best and most practical way to deal with this is manual removal, particularly in a mantis tank. I would suggest things like nassarius snails, brittle stars, conches, etc., but they will simply become food in a mantis tank so they aren't really options for you. Manual, thorough, consistent cleaning of the sandbed may be required to keep nutrients low.

It's natural for new dry rock to leech SOME phosphate, but this is far beyond anything like that could cause.

 

[iwnltom]

Gotcha. I still worry about the reading you are getting from your Hanna testers as it is WAY out of the accuracy range of the device. However, if manual tests are also returning extremely elevated levels we'll have to assume it is somewhat accurate, at minimum way too high for our purposes.

Frankly, I am surprised any type of coral is alive still but it sounds like even the most hardy of your corals are struggling, which would make sense at these levels. Let's make a plan to tackle the issue.

Unfortunately, I do not see any other course of action than to rip apart the rockwork for a complete, thorough cleaning. When you say "stunk" - do you mean an algae/exposed rock smell or was it a death smell? I would remove and inspect every single shell you can find, churn/siphon the sand in his burrow, move all the rocks if needed to completely clean the tank. THEN, siphon the water for a fairly large 25-30% water change. Continue to use the correct amount of GFO for your water volume. Wait 24 hours, then test again.

Unless we don't have the whole story, with how little you are feeding, something is dead/dying/decaying in the tank and causing such high nutrient levels. The best and most practical way to deal with this is manual removal, particularly in a mantis tank. I would suggest things like nassarius snails, brittle stars, conches, etc., but they will simply become food in a mantis tank so they aren't really options for you. Manual, thorough, consistent cleaning of the sandbed may be required to keep nutrients low.

It's natural for new dry rock to leech SOME phosphate, but this is far beyond anything like that could cause.

Okay I will do this tomorrow when my RO maker is set up, so you think I have that amount of time? Because I don’t have RO water to even do this tonight… I really appreciate your help and am very stressed, I just hope I have until tomorrow to do this. Should I change the gravel at the bottom? And if I do, do I have to rinse the new bag? Or I could put it straight in to a cycled tank already. Thank you

 

[Reefing Qs]

It sounds like this issue has been going on for a while (months?), I would not stress about the tank imminently crashing or things dying - at least in the next few days. In this hobby it takes us a long time to get in to a situation, it should be expected to take an equally long time to get out of that situation. Most things are generally very hardy, even the most sensitive ones, and can adapt to many changes if it's slow enough. Take a moment, a deep breath, and do one thing at a time.

Looking at your photos again... What kind of gravel is that? Is it saltwater grade, do you have a link to the product?
What kind of box filter is it, do you have a link to this as well?

The current issue we are facing is the lack of water for a water change. Until we can make that water tomorrow, we'll focus on what we can do:

-Send the links of the two above products so we can make sure they are sufficient for your setup
-Purchase a product like Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter7 to use for lowering the nitrate/phosphate levels per instructions
-Ensure your phos reactor is working properly (tumbling, water flow, etc.). Change the media if you can, if not do it during your water change.
-Change out the rowaphos in your filter to the maximum amount for your water volume. Don't overdo it. Do this during your WC if needed.
-WITHOUT removing them from the water or causing too much of a mess, move around the rocks to check for any obvious dead things or meat chunks

 

[iwnltom]

It sounds like this issue has been going on for a while (months?), I would not stress about the tank imminently crashing or things dying - at least in the next few days. In this hobby it takes us a long time to get in to a situation, it should be expected to take an equally long time to get out of that situation. Most things are generally very hardy, even the most sensitive ones, and can adapt to many changes if it's slow enough. Take a moment, a deep breath, and do one thing at a time.

Looking at your photos again... What kind of gravel is that? Is it saltwater grade, do you have a link to the product?
What kind of box filter is it, do you have a link to this as well?

The current issue we are facing is the lack of water for a water change. Until we can make that water tomorrow, we'll focus on what we can do:

-Send the links of the two above products so we can make sure they are sufficient for your setup
-Purchase a product like Brightwell Aquatics Microbacter7 to use for lowering the nitrate/phosphate levels per instructions
-Ensure your phos reactor is working properly (tumbling, water flow, etc.). Change the media if you can, if not do it during your water change.
-Change out the rowaphos in your filter to the maximum amount for your water volume. Don't overdo it. Do this during your WC if needed.
-WITHOUT removing them from the water or causing too much of a mess, move around the rocks to check for any obvious dead things or meat chunks

 

[iwnltom]

I will link everything when I’m home in about an hour, my gear is not proper that’s for sure, I was quite miss informed while buying it and have been upgrading all my stuff over the Months as my knowledge grew with a ton of research. U tried getting a sump with a protein skimmer, but realizing my tank is tempered glass I cannot drill into the tank and don’t trust an overflow for where I live. With that being said I’ve been thinking about an on the back filter as Il be able to add and change the white fluff sheet (forgot the name lol but it replaces sponges) because my filter is quite difficult to open and cannot change the sponges daily. With my new interest and love for this I’ve been very aggravated on my situation and lack of possibilities to fix it with what I have at the moment, I just ordered a beautiful Red reef set up with a prebuilt sump and EVERYTHING I need to have a beautiful reef tank, so I’m quite excited for that but need to fix my current situation first as I really care about it.

 

[iwnltom]

I will link everything when I’m home in about an hour, my gear is not proper that’s for sure, I was quite miss informed while buying it and have been upgrading all my stuff over the Months as my knowledge grew with a ton of research. U tried getting a sump with a protein skimmer, but realizing my tank is tempered glass I cannot drill into the tank and don’t trust an overflow for where I live. With that being said I’ve been thinking about an on the back filter as Il be able to add and change the white fluff sheet (forgot the name lol but it replaces sponges) because my filter is quite difficult to open and cannot change the sponges daily. With my new interest and love for this I’ve been very aggravated on my situation and lack of possibilities to fix it with what I have at the moment, I just ordered a beautiful Red reef set up with a prebuilt sump and EVERYTHING I need to have a beautiful reef tank, so I’m quite excited for that but need to fix my current situation first as I really care about it.

I’ve just gotten home, this is the name of the box filter “

Fluval 207 Perfomance Canister Filter for Aquariums up to 45 Gallons​

And I’ve attached a photo below of the gravel I use. Thanks for all the info you’ve helped a ton just discussing with another person who is clearly very knowledgeable in the subject.

 

[Reefing Qs]

OK cool - the sand is fine. I don't feel as though a 7 month old tank, even with a mantis, could accumulate enough to warrant completely replacing. I would absolutely still siphon and churn his burrow and remove all shells to inspect for decay - unfortunately, a good sniff is usually the best test. You'll know the death smell - low tide smell is fine, that is usually just the "rocks out of water" smell.

As you said earlier, the filter is definitely not sufficient. It may be sufficient for a 45 gallon tank with a light bioload, but a mantis is the opposite of that . I have a feeling it's not doing nearly enough to keep up with, let alone bring down the current bioload/nutrient level. On top of that, canister filters are a bit notorious for being nutrient factories if they are not maintained often enough - likely contributing to the issue here.

That being said! A canister filter is generally OK, just harder to maintain/clean due to its design. In either case, for a tank with a large bioload I would oversize the filter, potentially even double it to be safe (90-100 gallon filter). I would recommend swapping to a HOB if you think you will keep up with it more frequently.

 

[Reefing Qs]

You obviously have access to a reef store or somewhere online, so add Microbacter7 or a similar product to your shopping list. Dose this daily or twice a day (amount per instructions) to aid in reducing both no3/po4.

You should continue to do a water change every 1-3 days, 15-20% each time, until your levels get to normal ranges and your new equipment arrives. You may end up doing 150-200% water volume in total if your nutrients really are the numbers reported. The reason we don't want to do it all at once is that is a huge swing and could end up causing more harm by changing the parameters too quickly - an average of 10% daily for a week or two should be slowly enough. Yes, it'll be a lot of water.

 

[iwnltom]

OK cool - the sand is fine. I don't feel as though a 7 month old tank, even with a mantis, could accumulate enough to warrant completely replacing. I would absolutely still siphon and churn his burrow and remove all shells to inspect for decay - unfortunately, a good sniff is usually the best test. You'll know the death smell - low tide smell is fine, that is usually just the "rocks out of water" smell.

As you said earlier, the filter is definitely not sufficient. It may be sufficient for a 45 gallon tank with a light bioload, but a mantis is the opposite of that . I have a feeling it's not doing nearly enough to keep up with, let alone bring down the current bioload/nutrient level. On top of that, canister filters are a bit notorious for being nutrient factories if they are not maintained often enough - likely contributing to the issue here.

That being said! A canister filter is generally OK, just harder to maintain/clean due to its design. In either case, for a tank with a large bioload I would oversize the filter, potentially even double it to be safe (90-100 gallon filter). I would recommend swapping to a HOB if you think you will keep up with it more frequently.

Beautiful I will update you tomorrow when I do the change! I just spent 6 thousand on my red reef set up so it hurts a bit.. but if you could recommend me a filter to order that’s very good I would very much appreciate it thank you!