Effect of high nitrates on Corals

[Tecnomantis]

Greetings folks,



I have a problem. I have a 33 gallon custom made tank. A fomer hobbyist gave me 50lbs of live rock and some invertebrates and soft corals. I set up my tank with live rock live sand 1 week ago did a 20% water change and all my parameters are in order except nitrates (80ppm). I set up the non used live rock along with all the corals on a side tank with water movement and the water from the previous owner.

Now I am between a rock and a hard place. What would you do?
A. Keep corals and invertebrates on a side tank with poor lighting and no filter.
B. Transfer corals and invertebrates to a new tank with high nitrates 80ppm?

 

[Blu3s94]

Need more details on filtration to know why nitrates are 80 ppm, do a large water change and test for nitrates again.

Get them to 20 ppm or under and I personally would be ok with putting softies in.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[CStrickland]

It's par for the course that you'll have high nitrates after a tank move. It can take a couple weeks or a month for the bacteria to settle back in. Then one day the nitrates will start going down pretty quickly if everything else is in order.

If it were me I'd probably do a really big water change, like as much as you can without exposing a lot of the rocks to air. As I read your post there's nothing in the 33 that will suffer much from a temp or salinity swing, so you won't have to be too careful (just mix the new water and salt for an hour or so and get the temp within 5 degrees and the salinity within .003 ish). Larger changes are far more effective, as it will take 50% change to get you down to 40 ppm nitrate, maybe do it twice.

Once they're below 30 I'd move the coral and inverts. Be careful to transition them into the lights by ramping it up over time. They can burn.

I'd get rid of the hang on back filter. They're for fresh water tanks, in sw they cause nitrate problems.