Stock don't seem all that high, though I really have no experience with rays. I would recommend at least 50% W/Cs. A W/C of that volume will cut your nitrate level in half, this is of coarse assuming the tap water your are using is nitrate free. Have you tested your tap water's nitrate level?
can ceramic ring cause high nitrates?
- Thread starter mzhantsche
- Start date
Stock don't seem all that high, though I really have no experience with rays. I would recommend at least 50% W/Cs. A W/C of that volume will cut your nitrate level in half, this is of coarse assuming the tap water your are using is nitrate free. Have you tested your tap water's nitrate level?
So i have tested my tap water in the past and it came in at 0ppm. Well.....double tested right now and it came in at 10ppm. Really suprised!!! Thats terrible knowing that the city alows any nitrates in our water supply.
So now what the hell am i supposed to do. My LFS sells RO water but ill have to test that to see what its nitrates are at. They probably use tap water so i would imagine the nitrates were around the same level.
Just hit a wall. This is so frustrating. If i have to bucket the water in from a LFS, a 50% water change would require 18 five gallon buckets!
If the sump didnt bring the nitrates down enough i was planning on installing a 24/7 water change system but.......now that dosent seem like a good option.
Then I would be doing at least 50% water changes. Possibly even more but I would check with the guys in the ray forum on how 66-75% weekly W/Cs will affect your ray. I know W/Cs can be time consuming, you may want to look into a drip system water changer for your tank.
by rinse im assuming u mean with tank water right? just being clear. tap water will kill all of your bacteria
that depends on your tap water and what is being put into it.
some taps will be fine, others will wipe out your colony.
it's always best to fill a bucket with some tank water before you start siphoning, open up your canister and rinse all the innards in the bucket, place them back into filter, get it primed, then water some house plants or toss it down the drain.
i'm surprised to be honest that you're just running a 404 on your 180 with that stock. i had 2 retic pups in a 90gal with a 405 and i had to do water changes every 2-3days to keep up with all biomedia in the filter.
i went sump and i don't think i'd ever go back, there's nothing like being able to go without doing water changes for long periods of time. plants will also help eat your nitrates to prolong your need for changing water, but with stingrays, alot of plants will be uprooted or chomped on. putting some in your sump for a refugium type setup would be helpful. you'd want quite a few plants though. look into other ways people have set up nitrate reduction, like house plants with their roots hanging into the water from the surface. it's pretty inexpensive to do that too. simply grabbing some "get well" peace lillies from walmart even.
