Nitrates From Hell

[reefkeeper55]

So I had my water checked again today: Amn - ,0, NO2 - 0, NO3 - 200 ( or 20?), PH 8.0, KH 8, Cal - 460, SG 1.025, MG 1380, Po4 - 2. Everything is fine except for the frickin nitrates....I got rid of the Koran, have cut the food in half, done away with the sock and put the rubble rock back in my sump with a filter media on top of it to catch the crud, don"t know what else to do. All of the corals sem to be doing fine, although I do have mostly shrooms, leathers and zoas. I am running a Mag 9.5 for filtration, 4 Tunzee pwr heads, Aqua C EV 240 Protein Skimmer with a Mag 18 pump, and also running a Rena XP3 packed full of carbon, all of this in a 150 Reef if by chance someone sees this that hasn't tried to help before. Don't know what the hell else to do, and by the way this was after a 20g water chg yesterday and I did NOT touch the substrate!! Once again thanks in advance for any advice....

 

[SeaBee]

Any missing fish?

 

[bjohanson1234]

How often do you clean the filter media?

Is the test kit expired?

 

[reefkeeper55]

no missing fish, usually clean / replace the sock everyday but now since its gone I'll clean the media every 2-3 days, the LFS guys today used 2 different kits, although I did not check the dates, another guy is going to check it tmrw using a Tropic Marine No3 test kit, said it was accurate I've never heard of before.

 

[little_fish]

+1 BJ

Also, how often are doing water changes? 20 gals is pretty small for 150.


Many people expect their nitrates to go down with one water change or one reduction in feeding. Getting nitrates down take quite a bit of dedication and doesnt happen over night.

 

[reefkeeper55]

I have been doing 30-35 gal chgs every 2 weeks for the past 6 or 8 weeks, remember I posted a couple of months ago I caused my tank to cycle because I was deep gravel washing every single time, however the nitrates did come down but the amn spiked....I was told here to cut back on the gallons and Not to gravel wash, however someone else said they always have gravel washed like myself with seemingly no ill effects...danged if I know....

 

[reefkeeper55]

Also one would think if my trates were truly that high I would have algae everywhere but I don't , also the guy last week saw pics and a video of my tank and before he even tested it he said there was no way they were that high because the tank looked too good, said if they were 200 everything would be dead.

 

[little_fish]

With that additional information, i agree, i think the tests kits are off.

What happens if you move back to a regular water change schedule? I think if you do actually have a nitrate problem your corals will show you and will get some algae growth.

 

[reefkeeper55]

Also replaced the glass tops today with eggcrate, I have always used glass tops on my tanks but hopefully this will only increase the amount of evaporation ....with the glass tops and canopy on I was adding a gallon of R/O daily......have fans in place so my temp even with the tops was staying around 80 deg....

 

[little_fish]

The bigger issue with glass tops is that they dont allow for proper gas exchange

 

[reefkeeper55]

you mean back to 30 gal every 2 weeks and also gravel wash every time? I've added some rock to the back and the area in front is not that large....MY substate is only two inches eep at best....also my Clarkiis lay eggs every two weeks or so and have been doing this for months so at least they are stressed....just me!!!

 

[reefkeeper55]

Coluld improper gas exchange maybe be not allowing the process to occur as it should and on my earlier 75's maybe not made that big of a diference? I've only had this 150 for a few months but all ofthe stock and rock are a few years old, however this tank does have a new substrate

 

[little_fish]

It could be, i cant say for sure if gas exchange is part of the issue. All we can do is see.

And you can continue to gravel wash if you want, just be consistent with what you choose to do. And i would only wash part the sand bed at a time if you do want to wash your sand bed.

Also, it could be from moving the rock into the new set up. The old rocks have a couple of years to collect junk and moving them into the new set up is causing them to release it.

 

[Northstar24]

Might have been a typo but you listed phosphates at 2. Assuming you meant 2 ppm that's pretty high. Are you seeing any sort of nuisance algae growth?

 

[reefkeeper55]

very little, if you would fold a dollar bill in half I have about that area of brown ( what I assume to be diatom algae) when I come home in the evenings..amd yea the phosphates are 2...they have been as high as 6

 

[sen5241b]

I would double check nitrates with a LFS nitrate test.

 

[AmberSunrise]

When the nitrates in my freshwater tank got high I did 20% water change every day for a week and they are gone and never came back.
I think you are waiting to long in between changes since you have a problem you should do it consistently until the trates are gone then go back to the maintenance changes.