nitrate not coming down?

[crazy clowntang]

i do 50% water changes everyday. clean the filters once a month and sift the sand about twice a month. i have no rocks or anything in the tank for waste to get trapped its just sand and nothing else?

Honestly, with the size of your fish and the amount of waste they release via poo and urine, you might wanna clean your mechanical part of the filter once every 10-12 days and rinse the bio media/balls once a month. 150 gallons is small when you have 12" and 10" fish.

 

[crazy clowntang]

i think you might if just hit it with the bio balls.... i normally just put them in a 5 gallon bucket with tank water while i clean the rest of the filter.... i will try that and see if that does the trick...

What you can also do is slowly, little by little, replace the bio balls with some other bio media i.e. ceramic rings, Matrix by seachem(what i use), and bio media made by ehiem which is also good.

 

[fastestrx7]

are ceramic rings more efficent than the bio balls?

 

[crazy clowntang]

are ceramic rings more efficent than the bio balls?

Honestly I don't have the exact numbers of surface area that the bio balls and ceramic rings have, but the ceramic rings provide more surface area for beneficial bacteria which would make it more efficent.

 

[crazy clowntang]

Do you have any updates on the situation? Did the nitrates come down??

 

[tcarswell]

i do 50% water changes everyday. clean the filters once a month and sift the sand about twice a month. i have no rocks or anything in the tank for waste to get trapped its just sand and nothing else?

Sounds really odd to have high nitrates. What are you feeding ??