sgould

Just curious as to what range you all shoot for on nitrate levels. Clearly the lower the better, but beyond that...? I am trying to plug away at a red slime problem. It isn't too terribly bad yet, and I am trying to keep it that way. The last couple of days I have been tinkering with my powerheads trying to tweak currents in the tank. Added a powersweep today. I have cut back on the amount of food going in the tank. I recently (approx 2-3 weeks ago) started using a phosphate reducing media. I have been trying to work at detritus build up on the sand, with mixed results. That stuff is a pain to clean! Now I am looking at nitrates. Basically trying to cover all the bases.

Edit : Just tested a few minutes ago. Current reading is 5.0.

agsansoo

What is your nitrates at now ? (this is another favorite topic with me)

sgould

Currently at 5.0.

agsansoo

5 ppm ? Geezs, that nothing. Start to worry when it get to 80 + ppm. Fish can stand a few hundred ppm of nitrate.

agsansoo

Actually I believe xenia needs nitrates to thrive ! So your fine.

sgould

Cool. It's been as high as 20, but I've been working at it to control the algae and slime.

agsansoo

High phosphates and low PH, along with low circulation in the tank ( cyano is known to thrive in areas of low circulation ) is usually the cause of red slime. As for the algae, I recommend turbo snails. They clean my tank of all GHA (green hair algae).

sgould

Well, my pH is typically about 8.1-8.2. Phosphates are an issue, though as I said, I have started using a phosphate remover (PhosPure) to get at that. Snails are awesome...I have 6 astrea snails in there. They are amusing...I started with 3, and to this day those 3 hardly ever leave the live rock. The 2nd group of 3 are constanting roaming the glass and hardly ever touch the rock. They seem to do pretty good with film algaes, not as much with hair, but the blue leg hermits pick up that slack.

Anyway...I think my big issues have been phosphates and circulation. I think I took care of the circulation issue yesterday...added a powersweep and fiddled around with the existing power heads as well. Phosphates I need to test for again now that the PhosPure is in there.