nitrates and media question

[josh26757]

just wanted to thank all that respond first.you are all a big help.please stick with the long explanation.

my question requires some back ground so i will explain.i have a 75g aquarium with a 30g sump.1 foxface 2 clowns 1 sixlined wrasse 1 scooter blennie.
before i had any corals i didnt pay as much attention to nitrates as i do now.now i am wanting to get to a LIGHT sps stage as far as water quality gos.so over the last couple months i have added a few softies and lps corals that i really want and just want to add some sps for diversity and color.i know my lights aren't enough for a full blown sps tank and at this point dont care cause thats not my goal.tho i did leave the room in my hood for the extra ballast and lights.
i have moved alot in my display tank and sump in the last month that has caused a few nitrate spikes.i obviously expected this.i moved a small deep sand bed in my sump to better accommodate mangroves.also added some cheato to the sump.i moved all the live rock in my display and added some nice base rock that is starting to color very nicely.the reason for this is filtration.all the rock now is zip tied to pvc along the sides of the aquarium.their are holes between the rock that allow full water circulation between them.i am going to do the other side this weekend and next week.i added a fresh piece of live rock to keep things going as far as the bio filtration gos because my live rock is a couple years old.the nitrate spikes only lasted a day or so that was quickly remedied with water changes.but now i am having a problem keeping the nitrates as low as i want that is undetectable.could this be due to the live rock being exposed to nitrates and is holdind some?
i added 35 mangroves 5 of which are about a year old.i also added a reef octo skimmer that has been running for a month.i have done way more water changes than i should due to moving the rock and deep sand bed but i thought that was best.i know it will take time for the deep sand bed to reestablish and the new mangroves to start working.
ok finally the question.should i change media to chemi-pure or puragen?
how well do these medias work for i have never heard of them tell last night?
are there any other medias other than carbon and phos-ban i should know about?i really dont want to dose vodka at this time so i would rather avoid that subject.any and all suggestions will be considered.
my nitrates are not off the scale their reading 10 ppm.but have to do more that 10% water changes to keep them their.

 

[wm23oh]

I looked at a little of your past. It looks like your tank is about 2 1/2 years old. That's a lot of crud that may have gotten knocked into the water column and stuck on/in your LR.

Have you blown off your LR since the move to help suspend any crud in the water column? It's easy to do this before your W/C by using a new Turkey Baster (for tank only) and blowing around all the cracks and crevices. Just to get the loose crud out.

Was your LR out of the water for any time or was the water line below the top of your LR? If so you may have some sponge that was living in there dying off.

Have you checked under the Cheeto to see if debris are collecting fowling the water? I know you don't want to suck up any good bugs but maybe doing a little siphoning without putting the siphon in the sand bed (just slightly over it to where you can see the top layer swirl) may get the crud out.

Anything missing? You loose any fish, snails, etc.?

When you moved the mangroves did the roots move easily or did some of them break off and may be decomposing causing your nitrate issue?

I don't know if those chemical means will work (they might) but they will not fix the continuing issue. Ultimately you must figure it out and it may take a while. Lots of W/C's in the mean time is my suggestion.

Also if you have any hoses that may have collected any debris (ribbed hose) I would replace them with non ribbed hoses but in the mean time shake the daylights out of them and get anything in them into the water column and do a large W/C.

Others may also chime in with more info. and better suggestions but I highly recommend finding out what's causing your issue or eventually it's going to come back with a vengeance.

Best wishes,
James

 

[josh26757]

thanks for the reply.i have blown off the rock.i even have a kid sized tooth brush i use on the rock.my rock was out of the water to.only for about 20 min tho.not sure how much die off that would get me.all the life looks good.fish snails corals crabs they all seem ok.i didnt have much of a problem before i moved everything.i think i just need to catch back up with the tank since everything went flying!my main question would be is using chemi-pure or puragen becoming a standard in low nutrient tanks?
i dont want to use them as a band aid.by what i have read is the reason you have difficulties with certain corals like the filter feeders that dont use light gorgonians and many fish is due to their needs of excess food,stability in parameters such as temp. ph salinity nitrates.some of these could be fixed if the right media comes along.you could feed more to help with carnations and dendros or sun corals.but the big reason-in alot of the reefs like the great barrier reef nitrate levels are over 100 times LOWER than the lowest result on our tests.100 times lower than pure yellow on our tests!i would like to believe that tho at this time that level is impossible we would want to get as close as we can.problems arise tho if you keep a mixed reef as i do.nutrients that low can effect corals that require more from other reefs.but in my mind i could just feed more to accommodate them.this would still help me in the sps category.
so i will try siphoning some of the sand and blowing off the rocks once again.i hope things will go back to normal or better once the dsp settles in again and the mangroves start growing.my octo skimmer is only a month old also so i am sure it still has some break in going on.

 

[josh26757]

just for a update.i have added puragen chemi-pure and seachem bio max media
and reef carbon to a canister fluval 404 i have.also i changed all the filter pads in it to a phos pad and now have 40 mangroves(1 for every 2 gallons).i will sell off a few of the mangroves after a year or so as they start to get bigger.i also started dosing vodka and put 2 acros in the tank.a blue tip acro and a pink tip milli.both acros have 3 new legs growing and i have only had them for 2 weeks.my nitrates are now 0 and my corals seem alot more eager to feed.just wanted to let every one know how things are going.
i am very interested to see how the bio media dos seeing they claim it has deep holes in it that work for nitrates.i am thinking it will take about a month for it to start working.