Step 1...Ok, I am a bit mystified. About 4 weeks ago I purchased my first reef setup used and running but not maintained. It is a 24 gl aquapod all in one unit such as the Biocube, etc. It needed a major cleanup and since the lights were not on for some time, most of eveything in there died. I was left with live rock, live sand, a button pollup, blue legged hermit crab and a couple of Asterina stars. I emptied out about 2/3 - 3/4 of the original water and trans ported the tank home. When I arrived at my house I scraped the inside glass, and cleaned my chambers out. I also tossed around the sand. I scraped the backside of the tank free of all dead coraline algae and the dead algae. Once done I added new water. Overall, the big cleanup
Step 2....I waited for the mini cycle which sort of came but without the ammonia spike. I developed a horrible algae problem and decided since everything was within acceptable parameters, I would add the clean up crew...several hermit crabs, 2 emeralds and snails. The algae became worse and worse.
I decided to vacuum the sand...last hope and kill the lights for most of the day (left them on a short while just for the MR coral). Well this has worked and the algae is mostly gone.
Step 3....Bulbs just came in and replaced the old. 2 shrimp were added this weekend..doing great. Ammonia 0, NO2 0, NO3 15, Phosphate 0. <span style="color: darkorchid;">This is my mystifed part.</span> I cannot get my Nitrates below 15. I have done regular water changes using water from MF and to no avail...it remains at 15. My test kit works fine as I check other waters and it shows 0 for nitrates. I am using a poly filter and Puragen as well. Could this be a result of bioballs??
Any help would be appreciated...the setup is almost a month old now since I took it over.
Thanks.......
Step 2....I waited for the mini cycle which sort of came but without the ammonia spike. I developed a horrible algae problem and decided since everything was within acceptable parameters, I would add the clean up crew...several hermit crabs, 2 emeralds and snails. The algae became worse and worse.
I decided to vacuum the sand...last hope and kill the lights for most of the day (left them on a short while just for the MR coral). Well this has worked and the algae is mostly gone.
Step 3....Bulbs just came in and replaced the old. 2 shrimp were added this weekend..doing great. Ammonia 0, NO2 0, NO3 15, Phosphate 0. <span style="color: darkorchid;">This is my mystifed part.</span> I cannot get my Nitrates below 15. I have done regular water changes using water from MF and to no avail...it remains at 15. My test kit works fine as I check other waters and it shows 0 for nitrates. I am using a poly filter and Puragen as well. Could this be a result of bioballs??
Any help would be appreciated...the setup is almost a month old now since I took it over.
Thanks.......
