New to MFK quick into

[Alexxxxsv14]

That is a sweet tank and setup welcome to mFk

 

[esoxlucius]

Thanks for all the replies!! I will definitely keep yall up to date on what we are doing. We are moving to FL in a couple months and will be doing the bear of the drive with a spare 55 we have loaded up in the back of my truck, it will be heated, air raided, and covered an possibly filtering to relieve the stress of the trip. Unfortunately we may have to find a new home for the bala's, Congo's and Denisons. Although we will restock as soon as we get the tank back up and running..

Quick question for yall, so I mentioned we had a spike in nitrate and nitrite. We took care of the Nitrite and are working diligently to get our nitrates down through water changes. When we had our emergency we did a 50% followed by a 10% followed by a 20% in the last 5 days. We may have sent our tank into a mini cycle due to the fact that I changed out the media that was submerged and back to filter socks, I then then just added the bio balls today to try to "rapidly" build back beneficial bacteria we may have lost, due to a lack of bio media. I also made the mistake of rinsing my Matrix before adding it back into the reactors about a week ago.

Do any of you have any suggestions on the safest route we could take to build back our beneficial bacteria and lower our nitrates, now at 40ppm via API Freshwater Test Kit (done right)

 

[fishnatics]

Welcome and I'd say you're very committed for owning such a nice monster tank.

 

[WHODAT83]

I have trickle style sumps as well and am far from happy with them. I'm in the process of rebuilding four tanks at the moment for that very reason. A big sump is a wonderful thing. Canisters are fantastic as well.

Here is the sump for my 600 if it helps give you ideas. My sump is not for filtration though but it would be a great one so the principal is the same.

If you give yourself enough room in your sump you can run whatever media you want and eliminate the need for canisters. They can be a great quick fix though

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I do hope to do a similar sump here very soon, right now we have a 55 gallon 3 chamber sump and it's just not enough. After we move I plan on getting at least and 80 gallon quad 7" sock sump with a refugium and K2 media sections as well as the equipment section. I may get rid of the reactors and solely rely on a large amount of K2 for my bio. Right now we are running Matrix and bio balls and I'm not happy with its perfomance.

 

[WHODAT83]

I know there is a ton of threads on it but does anyone have any good suggestions to get our nitrates down with the setup we are running?

 

[mrrobxc]

So I was never a big fish/aquaria person until we drove 2 clown loaches and 3 danio's from Louisiana to Wisconsin and then out to San Diego. Ill tell you when you drive straight through from Wisconsin to San Diego with your girlfriend just to keep some $5 fish her papa got her, you better believe you've come committed to the hobby. Since the day (5 years ago) we drove this fish half way across the county we have upgraded from her 20 tall to a 55 gallon, then to a 180 gallon and have now settled with on a 300 Gallon..... well maybe.

The following currently reside in our aquarium unfortunately we lost about 10 fish due to a nitrite/nitrate spike. In the last week we have made some dramatic changes to how we are filtering our water.

2- Large Clown Loaches
1- Small Clown Loach
a couple of dension barbs
5- Large Bala Sharks
5- Congo Tetra's
1- Titanic Pleco
1- Sunshine Pleco
1- Cactus Pleco
1- Blue Eyed Pleco
1 - Standard Pleco
a few siamese alleges eaters

So here is the setup we currently have, any thoughts, comments, concerns are always taken as positive criticism. Since the spike we re-introduced our bio balls, I understand the volume is not nearly enough for 300 gallons and we are working on introducing more bio filtration, we just have to figure out how to work it into our sump.


looking forward to learning from yall!!! View attachment 1207692View attachment 1207693

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Welcome to MFK and what a nice tank. Great eye for design!

 

[JK47]

I know there is a ton of threads on it but does anyone have any good suggestions to get our nitrates down with the setup we are running?

Look into a drip system. There are many approaches but filter out chlorine and or chlorimine depending on what you water had, use irrigation drip emitters to control flow and set a level in your sump to always be overflowing water. 24/7 drip eliminates water changes and nitrates. Best thing ever for large tanks.

 

[knobhill]

+1 on the drip system. My 350g has similar stock as yours--but i have a lot more fish in my tank. I run a 60g sump, uv, and fx5 loaded with pond matrix. I haven't had to a water change in years, and the nitrates hang out around 10ppm.

Welcome to Mfk, what a great way to start off. Your tank is really,really nice. My only "constructive criticism" is the aquascaping-- for some reason, it just looks off to me because it doesn't draw my eye to any singular focus. When you move the tank, I'd love to see a different arrangement.

 

[WHODAT83]

+1 on the drip system. My 350g has similar stock as yours--but i have a lot more fish in my tank. I run a 60g sump, uv, and fx5 loaded with pond matrix

"constructive criticism" is the aquascaping-- for some reason, it just looks off to me because it doesn't draw my eye to any singular focus. When you move the tank, I'd love to see a different arrangement.

Couple questions

Do you run the drip system off the canister? We are probably going to go out and pick one up today or tomorrow.

Also with the canister do you use any pre-filter or just staright bio and use the sump filtration as your pre filter?


Thanks for the criticism, I know I tank is slightly in shambles right now due to the nitrite out break we recently had. I was it going to restock with plants until after the move but we needed a good nitrate absorber.

Unfortunately we lost another loach today, although he was effected pretty bad from the initial nitrite spike in the tank and had been hanging in there for the past week.

 

[knobhill]

Man. It's always a bummer when you lose fish. Sorry to hear about that.

I run my drip system through my sump. The drip line of fresh, decloraminated water enters at the top of the tank. Excess water leaves through a bulkhead in my sump thru a line I ran under the house, then out to the garden.

I only run fx5s on my large tanks. I have 4 going in total, with a backup fx5 and spare motor in case anything breaks. Each one is set up the same: pond matrix in the 3 center baskets with sponges on the sides. They keep the water clear and does great with the bio load.

I think your matrix reactors' flow might not be high enough to maximize the bb growth.

For record, I think eheim is good too (I have one installed on the tank in my avatar)

Until you get the water quality under control, you should do partial water changes every day.