[BlueWater]

After my tank cycled in June, I've had perfct
ph, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia levels.
(until I tested the water today)
pH was 8.2 NOW 8.0
Ammonia was 0 still 0
Nitrite was 0 NOW .5
Nitrate was 0 NOW 5

Anyone have any suggestions on how to lower
my Nitrtites, Nitrates, and raise my pH? I
can't purchase a skimmer until December.

My filtration is a Millenium 1000.
Water change 20% every week. Today I changed
out 30%.
Do I need to change out more water?

Also, should i siphon the crushed coral bed? Or just
replace the water?

Thnx in advance.

[bongobrian]

How many fish are in the tank? the more fish you have obviously the higher your nitrates are going to be. Do you add anything to the tank that might be organic that breaks down into nitrate? you might want to reduce or stop dosing it if you do. Over feeding will cause this as well. Your nitrates are nothing to worry about by the way. 5ppm isn't going to hurt a thing. Grow some macro algea in the tank, that should suck out the nitrate pretty fast. Keep your skimmate clean.

[bongobrian]

I also meant to tell you, to get your ph back up, just add some ph buffer or some reef builder. Shouldn't take much in a 10 gal. Probably only two or three teaspoons mixed in a cup of tank water.

[BlueWater]

Thnx for the tip. Right now I've got a Fairy Basslet and a
green spotted puffer. Both 1 inch long or less. Just kinda wigged out
because my tank is so small, and wanted to keep things as constant
as possible. Should I filter out the crushed coral bed when I do a
water change?

[Mobious]

You have CC bed as ur substrate????

If so I would take all of that out and put in some aragonite...about 3 to 4 in... A DSB of this stuff will help control your levels..

[BlueWater]

I cant get any live sand till Christmas. Upgrading tank
and everything so I'm saving up. If I put a 3 inch sand bed in my tank,
there will only be about 8 inches of water depth. Do I need that much?

[bongobrian]

crushed coral is just fine for a substrate. Yes live sand is probably better, but you don't need to worry about switching it right away. I use crushed coral as well and my levels are fine. You should DEFINITELY be siphoning your substrate when you do water changes. This will help give you more surface area for good bacteria and will, in turn, help lower your nitrate levels. If I were you, I would just stick with the cc until you upgrade your entire tank. It's not worth the hassle right now to take everything out of your tank just to put sand in. I'd say if you were going to keep this tank for a long time, you might consider putting sand in eventually.

[kevinpo]

If you have a fish only tank none of those parameters are too alarming for a 10 gal tank. If you siphon the substrate with a gravel cleaner (the large tube to hose type) I wouldn't do more than 50% of the substrate. They can be very efficient and remove beneficial bacteria also. When you test the PH again be sure you test it at the same time of day each time as it will have an effect on the readings.

Kevin

[BlueWater]

Thanks for the imput folks. I removed the live rock and
siphoned out under neath it. My Nitrates have dropped. Going to buy
that pH stuff tomorrow to get it back up. I haven't been testing pH at
the same time of day, so I'll start doing that too.

As for what type of tank I have, I have a mini-reef. A turbo, Emerald,
couple blue legged. The puffer fish doesn't touch anything except the
food I feed it.

Right now I have a couple bubbletip anemones in there. But the false
perc I had in there never paid any attention to them. So I got rid of it
also because it attacked everything else in the tank. Anyone know
what kind of clown I can get for my BTAs?

[mrok12]

What kind of tank set up do you have. do you skim? refugium? HTH

MROK12

[BlueWater]

oops. sorry cant seem to delete post

[bongobrian]

I have a 46gal bowfront combination fish/reef tank. I do not have a refugium at the moment, but I've been considering setting one up. My skimmer is a cpr bakpak2.