FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Hi i got a mag 350 and i wanted to know if there was media i could use to help with ammonia and nitrates? Like sand or stuff to put into the filter also phostphates are pretty high?

Also what other canister are cheap priced with lots of media room for a 75 gal

Would it be good to just run 2 mags?

I was reading that nothing will help with ammonia but for nitrates and phosphates there is media for it so i was thinking 2 canister running each media to help out what do you all think?

Also i am not getting ro/di at this time so please dont say that!

My tap really aint that bad just .15 ammonia and 2.5 nitrates so that aint to bad and i figured with the 2 canisters maybe it would be okay sense i only have a fowlr!

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

You'd be better off setting up a refugium. Then you can grow macro algae which will lower all of the values your having trouble with. You can also run phosphate removing media but nitrate removers aren't very good. If your getting ammonia and nitrate you need to increase your biofilter. More liverock and reef rubble would help especially if you don't have at least around 1lb of rock per gallon of water. Rock not only houses bacteria that change ammonia to nitrite to nitrate but some denitrifying bacteria which can keep your tank at zero nitrates. Even if I didn't do water changes my tank would have zero nitrates because of that. A deep sand bed can also help but you need alot of space to do that. Under 3" of sand just creates a nutrient sink increasing nitrates instead of decreasing them. I don't think it would be very effective in the cannister even if you could find a way to make it deep enough and keep the sand in place. Doing a 4-6" sandbed in the entire 75g would be helpful but possibly require redoing your whole tank. I think the easiest and most effective thing you could do(aside from using ro water) would be to run phosphate media in the cannister and add more rock. Liverock to the main tank would be best but filling a cannister with reef rubble would have some effect. A refugium would see the greatest benefits though but would require alot more effort to setup.

my tank has about 110 lb of rock witch only 10 of that was live!

i have about 60lb of play sand and 40lb of ls on top of that!

so as you can see i cut alot of corners a yr ago plus the tank got moved 2x sense then! but the ls was just put in last mo. due to so much loss in the move

The sand bed is only about 2 behind the rocks and about 3-4 in front so yeah i think that is some of my nitrates plus the rock!

with that said what do you think would be the best thing to do?

I was thinking about ordering like 45lb of lr and removing alot of my rock and replacing it with new after curing also adding more sand?

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

Dry rock becomes LR eventually so after awhile it really makes no difference what you started with. Same with sand. You only need enough live to seed the dry and it just takes a little longer to establish than starting with all live. Since you've disturbed it so frequently it may need a few months for the rock to become live and start helping with water quality. If there's space you could add more liverock but by the time the stuff is cured your current rock will probably be well on it's way to being live rock. The sand bed either needs to go(leave only ~1" ) or be fixed with more sand. More live sand is unnecessary. Really all you need is a couple pounds of live sand to seed your sand bed and the rest you can do in cheap dry argonite. Make sure you are using a fine grain sand like argonite and have lots of water movement or a DSB will only cause more nitrates. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/deepsandbeds.htm

If your tapwater is contributing ammonia though your still going to have issues with nitrates and every water change your animals will be stressed from the added ammonia. If your not going to do RO then I would suggest setting up a seperate tank large enough to hold a 10-20% water change(20g tank would be good), fill it full of macro algae(chaetomorpha would be easiest), and put a bunch of light over it. Home depot did have a 75w daylight spectrum screw in compact bulb that would work in a clip on floodlight type fixture which is perfect for growing macro but I don't see them anymore. The macro will remove the ammonia, phosphates, and nitrates from the water and at the end of the week you can use it for water changes without contributing to the problems in your main tank. It would just be easier to run an RO system though.

ro does sound better but i donno its a lot of trouble, i will prolly get one in the next mo. as i hope to get a job soon and will prolly change my tanks up to get the little guys away from the puffer and put them into a say 20l and maybe do some corals as that was cool when i did it before just easy stuff!

i am thinking it would be a good idea to add some sand and like 10lb of lr from the store already cured just to boost it you know

You know most of my rock has coraline on it but nothing else, i miss all the other things like tube worms, little bugs at night ect, now will those grow on there own? I would think i would need to reseed the rock with a good source dont you think? but to a flip side i do have a 6 line and every morning he is fat from eatting sumthing and i do not over feed if not way underfeed now due to this so i wounder if he is just wiping out my system sense its weak?

What do you think about that with the lr? i would have a enough room to throw in alot but 10-20lb would fit good on top i donno let me know about that! thanks

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

Hey i added some pics with a time line if you all wanna check it out

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

Actually if you want all the little critters you'd be better off fixing the water quality in the tank first. All those things you want have probably died off or gone into hiding from the ammonia and nitrates. I don't see any bristleworms, feather dusters, or the tiny starfish if I have even barely testable nitrates and when I was ending up with ammonia in my water change buckets everything would disapear for a week after I did even a small water change. While those things are helpful they aren't actually the main reason liverock improves water quality. It's the bacteria. Porous rock has tons of surface area for bacteria that change ammonia to nitrate and pockets with no water circulation that support denitrifying bacteria. Denitrifiers take longer to establish and you don't want to encourage too much growth or it can release dangerous gases into the aquarium but they do help alot with lowering nitrates. That's also the purpose of a DSB. The lack of oxygen in the lower levels allows denitrification. It takes awhile to establish though and it only helps to a point. Your still going to have ammonia in your tank for awhile after each water change and your still going to have a nitrate spike which is going to stress everything out. Especially those hitchhiking critters you want and corals. I wouldn't think corals, even the hardy ones, would survive having ammonia and nitrate added to their water. Not to mention the phosphate which at high enough levels will also harm or kill them.