You can over ANYTHING! For Petes sake gang, you can pass out from over breathing! It is called hyperventilation!
WTF, Try to place FOUR of the large #5 hydro sponge filters into a 5 gallon fish tank and then say there is no such thing as over filtration.
You can cram 100 filters into a 500 gallon tank leaving extremely little "space" for fish. Place one Oscar into the tank and see it dead from being unable to find any "swimming" space and choked out from the neurotic over filtration that you achieved!
If your nitrates level are high, that means that your biological filter is doing it's work. I don't see the point of getting a new filter.
What you could do is this
- increase the frequency of PWC to bring concentration down
- reduce the amount of food if you are overfeeding
- Regularly vac your gravel to so that less waste is ultimately converted to nitrates
- Wash out your mechanical filteration regularly
- Give away/ transfer some fishes if you're overstocked
- Add some nitrates-loving plants
- Get a denitrater
- Set up an algae filter
If your nitrates level are high, that means that your biological filter is doing it's work. I don't see the point of getting a new filter.
What you could do is this
- increase the frequency of PWC to bring concentration down
- reduce the amount of food if you are overfeeding
- Regularly vac your gravel to so that less waste is ultimately converted to nitrates
- Wash out your mechanical filteration regularly
- Give away/ transfer some fishes if you're overstocked
- Add some nitrates-loving plants
- Get a denitrater
- Set up an algae filter
If your nitrates level are high, that means that your biological filter is doing it's work. I don't see the point of getting a new filter.
What you could do is this
- increase the frequency of PWC to bring concentration down
- reduce the amount of food if you are overfeeding
- Regularly vac your gravel to so that less waste is ultimately converted to nitrates
- Wash out your mechanical filteration regularly
- Give away/ transfer some fishes if you're overstocked
- Add some nitrates-loving plants
- Get a denitrater
- Set up an algae filter
The point if adding another filter has nothing to do with nitrates. Add 100 filters and it won't lower your nitrate level( if anything that many would increase it). The point of adding another filter is called redundancy. The original posted stated that they thought cleaning their filter would upset the colony of beneficial bacteria, and they are right. Even perfectly maintained filters will see slight decrease in bioactivity if they are turned off or messed with for even short periods of time.
Adding a second filter does several things. Firstly it moves more water. Secondly, it increases your biocapacity to the effect that you can clean one filter on weeks two and four and the other on one and three, each without disrupting your overall biocapacity to a large degree. Larger more spread out biofilters have the added advantage of being able to adapt to a changing condition in the tank much more quickly ( dead fish, overfeeding, etc) plus what happens to your tank if your filter fails? I've kept fresh and saltwater fish for over 30 years and have seen plenty of filters jam, crash, get accidentally unplugged. If you have more than one filter, the chances of any of the above decrease dramatically. I generally like to see at least 2 filters on any large tank they can handle the tank by themselves if need be. They stay alot cleaner and you have much more pom.
That being said, the cheapest most cost effective way to reduce nitrates is water changes, period. Algae loving plants can help, algae filters work, denitrators are expensive and finicky at best, but all of the above cost money and are in effect adding another FILTER of some sort. My opinion would be to skip all these costly additions( except the plants) buy another $40 penguin, do 50% weekly water changes and call it a day. Nothing is a substitute for a ggod water change schedule. Just my opinion of course
If your nitrates level are high, that means that your biological filter is doing it's work. I don't see the point of getting a new filter.
What you could do is this
- increase the frequency of PWC to bring concentration down
- reduce the amount of food if you are overfeeding
- Regularly vac your gravel to so that less waste is ultimately converted to nitrates
- Wash out your mechanical filteration regularly
- Give away/ transfer some fishes if you're overstocked
- Add some nitrates-loving plants - Get a denitrater
- Set up an algae filter
Is this a "piece of equipment" or basically just a type of filter media that absorbs nitrates?
I have tried the Seachem Nitrate sponge media in all of my tank filters with precious little affect toward lowering my nitrates. I even when APE poop overboard in one of my 55 gallon tanks with the stuff with little to no benefits seen whatsoever.
Ape poop overboard = three #5 Hydro sponge filters with tha base filled with a 50/50 mix of activated charcoal & Kent Nitrate media. One AC110 HOB filter with foam (No Carbon) and filled to top with 50/50 mix of ceramic media (Hollow cilindars) and nitrate sponge media. and finally one AC70 with the same media setup as in the AC110. I have been unable to grow plants in the tank, as my Golden Severum seems to love plants. To eat them that is!
Its a piece of equipment where water is pumped at a very slow rate so that all the free oxygen in the water is used up. Then, in the absense of oxygen, anaerobic bacteria would utilize the oxygen in nitrate and break it down into nitrogen gas, officially completing the nitrogen cycle.
some models like aquaripure include syringe to inject ethanol or sucrose to promote the growth of these bacteria.
Of course, like aerobic bacteria, it would require time for it to cycle. So don't expect your nitrate to drop instantly.
Well, if you count the seachem stuff( which in my opinion didn't really work) both. Matrix and denigrate are supposed to reduce them, but a denitrator is also a large piece of equipment. The theory behind how it works has to do with creatic an anaerobic environment so these types of bacteria can remove the nitrates without having to do water changes. It usually involves a container with a coil of tubing wrapped round and round downwards so that the farther you push the water through it, very slowly, the less o2 is present, which in effect creates an environment for these anaerobic bacteria to thrive and do their job. Very tall fuidized sand bed filters can have a similar effect because the water pushing up through it, if done very slowly, will be stripped of all o2 creating the right environment as well. Both are pretty expensive, move water very slowly, have to be adjusted constantly and can really screw up yoursystem if you don't know what your doing. Denitrators typically need to be feed a sugar source as well. It's not that they don't work, for they can, but they can cost upwards of $300-500 bucks and need constant tweaking of the water flow. Push too much through and you kill your anaerobic colony because o2 is present. Very expensive solution to something we can all do with a hose gravel vac and about 30 min of your week.
Its a piece of equipment where water is pumped at a very slow rate so that all the free oxygen in the water is used up. Then, in the absense of oxygen, anaerobic bacteria would utilize the oxygen in nitrate and break it down into nitrogen gas, officially completing the nitrogen cycle.
some models like aquaripure include syringe to inject ethanol or sucrose to promote the growth of these bacteria.
Of course, like aerobic bacteria, it would require time for it to cycle. So don't expect your nitrate to drop instantly.
