Mechanical Filtration Media within Sump

[luke007]

G'day Guys,
I have a newly established 425 liter display tank, including a 2 foot sump.

I have 60 kg of LR. A dozen SPS corals. 1 Hermit Crab. 5 fish.

A couple of days ago my Blue Tang took ill (is still fighting for his life), I had a spike of 0.5 of ammonia and my nitrates were high at 30 (Tested with Seachem kits). I immediately did a w/c, levels went straight back up within 24 hours.

Up until now I've had no issues, regularly bi-weekly w/c's, established for 3 months.

To negate the ammonia I've done a further two 30% w/c (every 12 hours) with Sera Ammovac to try and neutralize the ammonia - which we've now accomplished successfully.

But my Nitrates are still at 10.

My thinking is the following: My sump has a drain compartment, where I've got a filter pad and ceramic noodles, into a baffle whereby another 3 filter pads existed, then into my return area whereby my Octopus NW-150 skimmer lives! (The water level is too high for the drain compartment).

Could I be building up excessive amounts of Nitrate and other nasty gunk in the pads? I have now removed two of the baffle pad's, leaving 2 as well as the drain compartment pad.

I was considering removing all the filter pads or do I need to look somewhere else for the issue?

I've only cleaned the pads once since the tank was setup.

Other information, my water is standard tap water treated with PRIME.

Cheers, Luke!

[b16drag]

REMOVE THE PADS! Not sure how long you've had the tank set up but those pads will need constant attention.

[luke007]

3 months!

[benzzz]

I change my floss 2wice a week....if it needs it or not

[luke007]

I am considering buggering the trickle system off (it's a bloody nightmare for nitrates) and implementing the berlin! Considering my skimmer is big and plenty of LR - thoughts, comments, discussions? All welcome USA :-)

[Elegance Coral]

I wouldn't be so quick to start removing the filter pads. The ammonia spike is a sign that the nitrifying bacteria can't keep up with the biological load of the system. Removing the pads at this point will just remove more of these bacteria. Have you made any large changes to the system lately? Did you clean the "ceramic noodles"? Add large animals? Remove a sand bed?

[aquawolf]

You need to make these changes slowly. Your system has been running this way for 3 months now and is used to the way things are, as Elegance stated going to fast could cause more harm then good.

A very rough calculation says that your tank is a 110 gallon and that you have 132 pounds of live rock in it. That should be plenty of filtration for that body of water.

Over the next month or so, I would remove all of the mechanical filtration components that came with your sump. Get rid of the pads and the ceramic noodles. If you can build some type of box out of eggcrate or polyester vinyl chloride (PVC) pipe to place your skimmer on and fit that into the first compartment so your skimmer is at its optimal working depth that would help as well. It may take a little bit of modification for your sump, but will be well worth it in the long run.

Then, when it is time for water changes you can either siphon or wet vac the junk off the floor of your nice, clean, sump.

Here is a picture of my CPR-CY294 that started life as a wet/dry but is being used as my sump.


The section with the sponges and return pump used to have plexiglass drip plates and then a huge bio bale underneath that. The sponges are there to quiet down the water fall from the skimmer chamber and get changed out and cleaned weekly.

I hope that helps.

[luke007]

hey thanks for the response! thats exactly my thought's and my POA for the next 4 wks.

Regarding the earlier response, has anything changed/added etc... Not a thing, hence i was surprised with the ammonia spike. The w/c, two days prior to the spike occurring I did throw some subtrate (handful) back into the display that had been in one of my water containers that i use to siphon out.