Nitrate Spike

[viler]

recently I added a sleeper goby to sift my sand bed (2inch).

suddenly I noticed a few of the softies are 'bleaching' and dying off slowly.

I tested my waters today and Ive noticed a largish nitrate spike

paramaters are

ph 7.8-8.0
nitrite 0
nitrate 40+
ammonia 0

nothing else has changed, flow placement etc

[Fat Tony]

How old is your tank.. if it is a really established sandbed that has not been disturbed before, the Goby threw a wrench into the anaerobic bacterial filtration.

[viler]

the tank was started at the end of January.

when he sifts i get a paleish yellow type cloud comes off and dispereses through the column. lasts about 3 seconds befpore its all gone.

[Fat Tony]

Yeah, it's messing with the anaerobic bacteria and releasing nutrients that your sandbed stored back into the water column... I would recommend several waterchanges over the next few weeks to help drop the nitrate levels down.

[viler]

thanks tony, kinda what i figured and hoped was all that i needed

[Fat Tony]

NP, feel free to ask if/when you have more questions.

[Mr.Peanut]

I vacuum my sand at every water change. I thought I had a real clean sand bed...After I added a sand sifter I could not believe the amount of "stuff" he kicked up into the water. Keep doing water changes like Tony suggests to lower the nitrates. In a week or two the clouds of dust will also subside some.

[Dragonist]

is ok to take a gravel vac and pull the sand out and pour fresh asw and pour out the dirty detrius water to clean the sand?

[Loverotties]

What type of tank is it?

[viler]

I have a bio cube rottie

[luther1200]

I sould also try to run as much mechanical filtration as you can and change/clean it every day to get all that stuff out of the tank. Since the Goby is kicking it all up you may as well try to get it out of the tank.

[Elegance Coral]

Originally Posted by Dragonist

is ok to take a gravel vac and pull the sand out and pour fresh asw and pour out the dirty detrius water to clean the sand?

If I understand what you're saying correctly, the answer would be yes.