What are the best ways to control Nitrate levels in a 50 gallon salt water tank? What are the best anenomes to purchase and how do they affect the levels in the tank? Will my fish (Damsels, Triggers) become predator or prey for anenomes?
Help on Nitrates! And How anenomes affect levels!
- Thread starter sharper
- Start date
Hello Sharper welcome to mfk!
You'll have to tell us a little bit more about your tank as far as substrate, time it's been set up, filtration and stock. Imho the best way to controle nitrates is through having enough live rock and or a fuge to help convert to atmospheric nitrogen. You should also do water changes to keep it under 5 ppm if you have a reef and 20 ppm if you have fish onlyl.
What sort of triggers do you have? They might bother your anems and the damsels will probably become dinner. IMHO if you really want anems you need to do as much research as you can and really set the tank up with them in mind.
hth
and here is a link that may be of assistance. http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53000
Max
You'll have to tell us a little bit more about your tank as far as substrate, time it's been set up, filtration and stock. Imho the best way to controle nitrates is through having enough live rock and or a fuge to help convert to atmospheric nitrogen. You should also do water changes to keep it under 5 ppm if you have a reef and 20 ppm if you have fish onlyl.
What sort of triggers do you have? They might bother your anems and the damsels will probably become dinner. IMHO if you really want anems you need to do as much research as you can and really set the tank up with them in mind.
hth
and here is a link that may be of assistance. http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53000
Max
Welcome to MFK!!!
Install a good protein skimmer to remove proteins before they have a chance to be broken down into ammonia and nitrates. Don't know what you mean by "best" anemones other than get non-photosynthetic species if you're not using advanced marine lighting. Your filtration system will need to be able to handle the bio-load of fish and anemones since anemones are animals and add to the taxing of your bio-filtration. Damsels and triggers are not a good mix in a 50 since triggers can obliterate damsels without breaking a sweat and damsels are extremely territorial and aggressive and will not do wel in a group in a small tank (save for a couple of species). Triggers will also graze on anemones even if well fed otherwise. And, 50 gals is too small for most trigger species.
Need to do some more research before taking the plunge. Or, the headaches will sour you to marine setups.
Install a good protein skimmer to remove proteins before they have a chance to be broken down into ammonia and nitrates. Don't know what you mean by "best" anemones other than get non-photosynthetic species if you're not using advanced marine lighting. Your filtration system will need to be able to handle the bio-load of fish and anemones since anemones are animals and add to the taxing of your bio-filtration. Damsels and triggers are not a good mix in a 50 since triggers can obliterate damsels without breaking a sweat and damsels are extremely territorial and aggressive and will not do wel in a group in a small tank (save for a couple of species). Triggers will also graze on anemones even if well fed otherwise. And, 50 gals is too small for most trigger species.
Need to do some more research before taking the plunge. Or, the headaches will sour you to marine setups.
Right now I have
1humahuma trigger 2.5 in
1 niger 3 in
2 domino damsels .5-.75 in
1 tomato clown 2 in
1 tang 2 in
I also have a good amount of live rock.. is that really overstock?
1humahuma trigger 2.5 in
1 niger 3 in
2 domino damsels .5-.75 in
1 tomato clown 2 in
1 tang 2 in
I also have a good amount of live rock.. is that really overstock?
sharper;559468; said:
That seems pretty overstocked to me.
Nitrates are pulled out by Purigen, it's the best.
Yes, it is the triggers will eat/kill everything else in the tank the huma huma will get about 10 inches long and one day it will figure out that the other fish are made of meat. They are pretty chilled as far as triggers go but, I wouldn't add anything smaller than it is. The niger will eat any inverts you decide to add. That is also about the bottom limit for the tang and they are ich magnents when they get stressed out and the huma will do that sooner or later.
hth
p.s. I'm going to give you a break down on the size of your fish as adults not to try to push some mythical inch of fish to 5gallons rule but, to give you an idea of what you're in for.
huma huma around 10 inches 80 gallons
Niger 1 ft 100 gallons
Tang depends on which one you have the common yellow tang gets about 8 inches long
The tomato will get 4 1/2 or 5 inches long and they are pretty aggresive it might stand up to the huma .
hth
p.s. I'm going to give you a break down on the size of your fish as adults not to try to push some mythical inch of fish to 5gallons rule but, to give you an idea of what you're in for.
huma huma around 10 inches 80 gallons
Niger 1 ft 100 gallons
Tang depends on which one you have the common yellow tang gets about 8 inches long
The tomato will get 4 1/2 or 5 inches long and they are pretty aggresive it might stand up to the huma .
The problem is, triggers are very messy and the food goes everywhere and collects as waste...Not much you can do...as you can't have shrimp and a clean up crew.
In this case....I would suggest you up the flow in the tank to alteast 15x turnover, this will keep the waste suspend more for your filtration system to pick it up.
Also the more frequent water changes are good.
I agree with Max that the fish will outgrow the tank soon, if not now...
A Hang on the back fuge would help a lot..
In this case....I would suggest you up the flow in the tank to alteast 15x turnover, this will keep the waste suspend more for your filtration system to pick it up.
Also the more frequent water changes are good.
I agree with Max that the fish will outgrow the tank soon, if not now...
A Hang on the back fuge would help a lot..