Nitrates Any Suggestions

[beareef19]

120 gal with 125lbs. live rock 80 lbs. live sand lots of hermits, snails, peppermint shrimp,clams, crabs. Water peramiters cal. 410 p.h. 8.2 amm. .25 alk.3 meq. sal 1.022 temp 82 nitrite 0 nitrate 10. Water change 5 to 10 gal weekly w/ro/di what can i do to reduce my nitrates tank has been up for 2 mos, lots of bio activity suggestions please. running sump and redsea skimmer.

[beareef19]

I have approx 4in sandbed and refugium w/approx 2-3 in sandbed, fug is about 12gal. w/ halameda and grape culerpa

[beareef19]

Berlin classic skimmer rated 175 gal feed twice weekly microvert and phytoplex 10 ml each

[robertpower3]

My nitrate levels were at about 20ppm until I increased the amont of live rock i had from 1 pound per gallon to two pounds per gallon. I also added a big skimmer. I feed almost every day now and my nitrates are at 0.

[beareef19]

amm, is always between 0-.25 N03 is 5-10 ppm not to confident in test kit will get new one today any recomondation.

[matt]

If all you have is 80 pounds of sand in a 120, that's not even close to enough for a deep sand bed capable of processing any quantity of nitrate. Plus, the grain size is really important. For southdown sized (also aragamax) you'd need at least 200 lbs. If the live sand you have is the stuff that you buy in lfs called "live sand" the grain size is a little bigger. You'd want to supplement that live sand with a lot of the "sugar sized" grains like southdown, pure caribbean, or aragamax.

There's a calculator on reefcentral (our's doesn't seem to be working) for sandbed depth/weight needed. On my 100 gal, a 4" sandbed came up needing 225 lbs or something like that.

Also, you didn't mention any fish. There's really no reason you should have any measurable ammonia, unless you have a huge fish load and even then....if you have no fish, either your test kit is wacky (likely) or you're still getting die-off on the liverock in your tank, which is also very possible in a 2 month old tank.

BTW, if your ammonia test kit is that far off, how do you know you have nitrates anyway?