Very new to saltwater coral and fish help!

[bahaman03]

I am having troble keeping nitrates and phosphate down to low levels. I am currently running a 150 gallon tank with a emporer 400 biowheel, a 12 x 12 skimmer, this is the dimensions for the front resivour and the back that has two filters on it this goes down to my 45 gallon tank set up, hits my bio filters then drips into bio balls then goes through the levels and the bio bags? i believe thats what they are, i change those every 3 months, I have a heater with a digital reader on it in my 45 gallon filter tank on the bottom have it set to 78 i also have an aquatop 500v it has a uv light and is supposed to turn my water into ro water? this also has a bar for circulation in my tank that i have flowing on my corals for circulation and feeding, i have checked my nitrate and phosephate levels and they are still pretty high around 80 for nitrates and 2.0 for phosephate. I have a reef test kit, the nitrate test says that a regular nitrate test reads about 4.4 times lower that the one I have. Regardless I want to get everything down as far as I can to promote my reef. I also use the aquavitro line for my corals( eight four, balance,calcification,fuel, vibrance, ions) I use these as directed on the label. I have 3 t5 aquatic life reff lights. these stay on for8 to 10 hours in the day. I feed my fish 4 domino damsils, 4 yellow tailed damsils, 2 withe and black damsils, yellow tang, unicorn tang, powder blue tang, fire angelfish, brown and white striped eel, 4 clownfish, anenome, purple tiny guy not sure of the name, and black and white gobi, i feed them blood worms, pellets, krill, seaweed, and other frozen foods like silverbacks, i do not feed them all of this every day but i doo feed them once a day, they clear up the food i put in. A month ago I had a red and white striped tang a gray tang a lion fish and 2 fox face angels, they have since died, discoloration, and fraying of the fins. Now that they have passed everything has seemed to calm down. I tried saving them with multiple water changes and the coral seem to be doing fine they are always open but don't seem to be growing much. I just dont want the dieing to start again and I believe it has something to do with the nitrates and phosphate. I want to get this mastered so I can move onto setting up my 700 gallon wall tanks!!!!

 

[cmaxwell39]

Based on what you have described, I would say that the bio-balls, bio-wheel, and filter socks are at least part of the cause of the high nitrates. All of these forms of filtration are known to be "nitrate factories". What is meant by this is that these forms of filtration will trap detritus and very efficiently colonize bacteria that breaks down harmful ammonia to nitrite, and then nitrite into nitrate, but do nothing to process nitrate. Maybe look at removing the bio-balls, or at the very least clean them, and possibly adding a refugium.

Also, examine your feeding regimen. Nitrates come from the processing of the break down if uneaten food and fish waste.


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[bahaman03]

how big of a tank do i need for a refugium? and what is the set up for it? does this replace the bio balls?

 

[skinz78]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I'm a bit confused with some of the info given. Can you post a pic of your RO filter?

I totally agree with the above statement about bio balls, bio wheel they are known problem causer's and I recommend removing them.

How old is your setup?

It sounds to me like you had some agression issues causing the fish deaths.

 

[skinz78]

Can you post pic's of your entire setup so we can better see what you have going on?

 

[cmaxwell39]

how big of a tank do i need for a refugium? and what is the set up for it? does this replace the bio balls?

A fuge can be as big or small as you have room for. Depending on your current sump setup you may be able to remove the bio-balls and redesign everything to make a fuge out of that section. Also, do you have a protein skimmer? Not sure from your original post. This addition would also help by removing dissolved organics before they have a chance to break down.


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[bahaman03]

 

[bahaman03]

 

[bahaman03]

can someone send me a pic of a fuge

 

[bahaman03]

pics up

 

[Tom Does Disney]

Go to YouTube and search sump refugium by newyorksteelo

 

[Tom Does Disney]

How To Setup A Sump Refugium - YouTube

Here you go

 

[skinz78]

How old is your setup?

Do you use water strait from the tap?

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Welcome to R2R!!

I think the issues you are having can be attributed to several things including the bio-balls and stocking choices.

 

[bahaman03]

stocking as in fish?

 

[bahaman03]

no i started with ro water and mixed in salt its at a gravity reading of 1.024

 

[bahaman03]

set up was 6 months ago

 

[bahaman03]

took the bio balls out... added pics of the tank before i took bio balls out. Can you reccomend a good skimmer. the ones I looked at are a couple of hundred dollars, I do not want to buy the wrong one and waste money. also the water has been cycling for about 3 hours now w/o the bio balls and has truned from a yellowish color to a pretty blueish color in the

 

[mike007]

Get rid of the biowheel and all filter pads. All you need is a good skimmer, live rock, and good circulation. You need to make all the changes gradually so as not to shock your system. Also if that is a cannister filter in pic it also needs to go. You are going to have to do water changes and clean that system up or you are going to have problems trying to maintain corals.

 

[skinz78]

stocking as in fish?

Yes that is a lot of fish to add in just six months.