Help with new tank and high nitrates

[wrxin]

My first post! I wanted to first say thank you for all the knowledge that is shared on this forum, it's help me immensely.

My question, with all the background below, is regarding high nitrate levels on a new tank.

I am new saltwater. I've been doing research for months, more reading than I ever thought possible.

I have a 180g reef tank. I filled it about 3 weeks ago. 40g sump, protein skimmer, I built a coast to coast bean animal overflow that works great, (4) 1500 gph power heads, 1400 gph return pump, live sand bed, and dry rock.

When I bought the tank, it had water and rock in it, no fish at the time, the guy was tearing it all down. I pressure washed the rock and it sat dry for a few weeks.

About three weeks ago, I setup the rock, filled the tank, salinity of 1.024, 80 degrees F, got everything running.

I'm about 12 days into a Red Sea Reef Mature Pro Kit.

Nitrite levels are very close to zero, same with ammonia. 8.3 pH, 11 dKH.

The tank is getting pretty brown with algae at this stage. It's definitely in an ugly stage.

My issue is nitrates. I measured them around 50 last week. I took a water sample to my LFS who measured them around 40-50 as well.

On Monday (today is Thursday), I did a 50 gallon water change and dosed the tank with a bacteria product from the LFS. The protein skimmer has been off for a few days per the instructions on the bottle.

I waited a few days, testing the Nitrates last night, and they are still high. It's really hard to gauge the exact level with the Red Sea test kit I'm using. I think the pink color is lower than 50 and higher than 20, that's the range on their color card.

The only thing I can guess that's causing the high nitrates is the rock?

I'm looking for advice as to what to do now. The LFS said the nitrate levels are too high to introduce a "cleaning crew".

I've been reading about algae scrubbers, Chaeto in a fuge, and lots of various chemicals and really expensive nitrate removing equipment.

Is all this just the tank cycling and I need to be patient? If so, for how long?

Do I try to continue to combat the nitrates?

I've read that some say to keep doing water changes and others say it's actually not a good thing and won't help since the tank has no life in it yet and I'd actually be removing all the work done with the red sea kit.

Thanks for reading all that and I appreciate any advice.

-Mark

 

[toothybugs]

Personally, I would get your skimmer going and toss in a half-cup of vinegar a day and watch things get consumed. The vinegar will prompt bacterial blooms which your skimmer will love pulling out. But that's me. I don't run sand beds.

If you do have sand, let your denitrification processes kick in. Your levels will drop with time as your biology kicks in. Water changes get expensive on big tanks and really aren't all that effective unless they are HUGE.

 

[wrxin]

Personally, I would get your skimmer going and toss in a half-cup of vinegar a day and watch things get consumed. The vinegar will prompt bacterial blooms which your skimmer will love pulling out. But that's me. I don't run sand beds.

If you do have sand, let your denitrification processes kick in. Your levels will drop with time as your biology kicks in. Water changes get expensive on big tanks and really aren't all that effective unless they are HUGE.

Thank you!

No kidding on the water changes! Not only are they expensive, but it takes about 24 hours to "make" 50 gallons of water through my RO DI setup so I have a Brute trash can sitting in my living room for a few days.

Will the sand do its thing by itself?

What type of vinegar?

Cheers!

 

[wrxin]

I found the type of vinegar to use. Now I'm trying to decipher the dosing chart that's all over the internet. I read it's in MLs. It has a Day 1-3 amount,a day 4-7 amount, and then just list weeks.

Does anyone know if the week row is how much you dose total for the week or if it's a daily amount for the given week number?

For example, for 100 gallon tank, the chart for week 2 says 10.4 mls. Is that for the whole week or is the chart saying to dose 10.4 mls per day in week 2?

 

[toothybugs]

It's per day.

If you don't have much live stock (doesn't sound like any) I wouldn't be concerned too heavily with following the dosing calendar. That is to acclimate your tank to the bacterial growth so you don't get a bacterial bloom that consumes all the available oxygen and chokes out your fish. Use it as a rough guideline but I've tossed half a cup of vinegar in to my old 40B system with no issues except bacterial strings mucking everything up for a few days. Blow the rocks off, let the skimmer do its thing (and trust me, oh will it ever), and just wait. I say a half cup and no more so you can see how your system will react. It might not be a bad idea to do it every other day the first week just so you can see the changes. But with no fish or livestock, I wouldn't hesitate to go with a half cup. I would do that in my 75 without too much worry.

 

[Sk8r]

There is a table showing amounts per gallon and how fast to increase. Look up 'marine tank vinegar dosing' or 'carbon dosing marine' on Google.

 

[wrxin]

It's per day.

If you don't have much live stock (doesn't sound like any) I wouldn't be concerned too heavily with following the dosing calendar. That is to acclimate your tank to the bacterial growth so you don't get a bacterial bloom that consumes all the available oxygen and chokes out your fish. Use it as a rough guideline but I've tossed half a cup of vinegar in to my old 40B system with no issues except bacterial strings mucking everything up for a few days. Blow the rocks off, let the skimmer do its thing (and trust me, oh will it ever), and just wait. I say a half cup and no more so you can see how your system will react. It might not be a bad idea to do it every other day the first week just so you can see the changes. But with no fish or livestock, I wouldn't hesitate to go with a half cup. I would do that in my 75 without too much worry.

Thank you!

 

[wrxin]

There is a table showing amounts per gallon and how fast to increase. Look up 'marine tank vinegar dosing' or 'carbon dosing marine' on Google.

I've Googled dosing so much is almost ridiculous. The table does not clearly say if it's a daily dose or a weekly dose. I can see the columns for various tank sizes. It also seems like folks are dosing way more than the table states but again, when folks state their dosing, it's many times unclear if they are talking about a daily dose, weekly dose, per gallon dose, etc.

toothybugs said it was daily, which makes sense.

Cheers!

 

[wrxin]

It's per day.

If you don't have much live stock (doesn't sound like any) I wouldn't be concerned too heavily with following the dosing calendar. That is to acclimate your tank to the bacterial growth so you don't get a bacterial bloom that consumes all the available oxygen and chokes out your fish. Use it as a rough guideline but I've tossed half a cup of vinegar in to my old 40B system with no issues except bacterial strings mucking everything up for a few days. Blow the rocks off, let the skimmer do its thing (and trust me, oh will it ever), and just wait. I say a half cup and no more so you can see how your system will react. It might not be a bad idea to do it every other day the first week just so you can see the changes. But with no fish or livestock, I wouldn't hesitate to go with a half cup. I would do that in my 75 without too much worry.

Oh one other thing, you are correct, I have no live stock in the tank yet.

 

[jminick2]

you need to wait until you nitrites are actually 0 not close to 0 before you even bother measuring nitrate. 9 times out of 10 nitrites will cause nitrate reading to be way higher than they actually are.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I would do one large WC of say 40-50% and it will knock the nitrates down considerably. If you do less than a 20% WC you will hardly notice much change.

So is your cycle finished, or do you still have nitrites and ammonia readings? If you still have nitrite and/or ammonia readings don't do a water change.

 

[wrxin]

I did a nitrite and ammonia test last night and I'm pretty sure they were both reading zero.

I sure wish there a test kit that just said yes or no to some things. I'm using a Red Sea test kit and the ammonia value of zero actually has a faint green tone on their test results card, so you're still making a color judgement call.

Here's a noob question, I was curious about this earlier, the way I tell if the cycle is done is if the nitrite and ammonia are zero?

The tank is 180 gallons and I did a 50 gallon water change and the nitrates didn't change at all.

 

[jminick2]

Here's a noob question, I was curious about this earlier, the way I tell if the cycle is done is if the nitrite and ammonia are zero?

You can add a source of ammonia to double check, If you are still getting 0 the following day then your bacteria is doing it job.

 

[wrxin]

You can add a source of ammonia to double check, If you are still getting 0 the following day then your bacteria is doing it job.

That sounds so simple, sort of a why didn't I think of that. Do you have an ammonia source you recommend? I don't want to throw some bathroom cleaner in the tank.

 

[jminick2]

fish food, or pure ammonia from the hardware store.

 

[wrxin]

fish food, or pure ammonia from the hardware store.

Gotcha, thanks.

 

[jminick2]

Gotcha, thanks.

if you use food I would use a good amount and I would wait a couple days it takes longer to break down. If you use pure ammonia you will know the next day and I would only raise it like 1ppm no point in going much higher

 

[wrxin]

I started dosing 1/2 cup vinegar per day yesterday and today.

Any idea how long before I see any effect?

Should I be increasing the dose amount?

 

[fernalfer]

I started dosing 1/2 cup vinegar per day yesterday and today.

Any idea how long before I see any effect?

Should I be increasing the dose amount?

Hows the tank going? I have a 120 and having a nitrate issue aswell. Tank has cycled and now i'm getting a little diatom bloom. Tank has been running a month now. I have no fish in my tank either. I have done about 8 50 gallon water changes so far and the nitrates remain high. This is starting to get expensive and time consuming making water with little results.

Did the vinegar work. I also am hesitant to get a clean up crew due to the high nitrates. Not sure what to do at this point.

 

[wrxin]

Hows the tank going? I have a 120 and having a nitrate issue aswell. Tank has cycled and now i'm getting a little diatom bloom. Tank has been running a month now. I have no fish in my tank either. I have done about 8 50 gallon water changes so far and the nitrates remain high. This is starting to get expensive and time consuming making water with little results.

Did the vinegar work. I also am hesitant to get a clean up crew due to the high nitrates. Not sure what to do at this point.

Well, I kept taking water samples into the LFS. They would not let me (with good reason) put any living things into the tank while it had high nitrates.

I am 99.9% sure the high nitrates in my tank were caused by a bunch of rock I got with the tank. I pressure washed the rock before I put it in but I don't think it helped.

I did use vinegar dosing for about a month.

I did a ton of water changes. I hear you on the expense and the time doing that.

After each water change, the nitrates would shoot back up. I have a 180g tank with about 20g in the sump. I did some 50g water changes with no result. Over and over the nitrates would go backup.

The tank then started the "ugly phase" while the nitrates were still high. The whole tank when brown - sand, the tank, the rocks, it looked awful.

But finally after about 2 months with lots of water changes and the vinegar, the nitrates started to drop.

I don't really know if the vinegar helped in the end. I don't have nitrate problem anymore so I don't do any dosing.

My LFS actually said the water changes were not helping that much. They said the ammonia levels (which were high) were showing that the tank was still cycling. That and the Nitrites were still high in addition to the Nitrates.

I can't remember the exact explanation from the LFS but it was very helpful to take water samples in there each week and get their advice. I have all the water testing things at home too but the LFS was able to form opinions based on the results that I couldn't by myself.

Anyhow, finally after a few frustrating months, the nitrites and nitrates dropped to zero. The final water test by the LFS showed my PH was low and would have killed anything living creatures put in the tank. That was an easy fix.

Then I finally was able to get a cleaning crew into the tank and that was awesome. They cleaned the tank up so quickly. After three weeks of them surviving and the levels staying good, I started adding fish one at a time.

My tank now has a good protein skimmer, filter socks, and a home made algae scraper. That's it. (along with the rock and live sand) The water is crystal clear, levels are all very good.

I have a BRS 4 stage value plus RO/DI 75gpd filter system for water changes and auto top off. I live on a well and the water is pristine clean but I use the RO DI system anyway.

I really don't like doing water changes. I don't do one every week, more like every 3 weeks. I've been doing 40 gallon changes but now I'm going to start doing smaller changes more often. It's actually easier to do smaller ones more often than doing large ones. Less salt at a time, quicker for the water to heat up, I don't have a huge 50g trashcan in the living room filling up for a few days, etc.

My advice, FWIW (I've only been at this for 6 months) is to be patient, find a good LFS and take water in there each week for testing, and see they can figure out why your nitrates are so high. Something causes the high nitrates. It's either your water or something in the tank. I know that sounds obvious but the LFS should be able to help.

Have you tested the nitrate levels in your "new water" before you add it to the tank?

Good luck!