High Nitrate level?

[TheReefer00]

I had a problem with my green finger coral so i barrowed my friends test kit and my nitrate was at 60 so I did a 13 gallon water change(I have a 55 gal) and the nitrate went down about to low side of 40. I was wondering how much of a water change is to much? I know u shouldnt do more than 50% but weekly can I do 25% till my nitrate is gone? Thanks any help would be great.

 

[AD87]

how often do you do regular water changes.

what is your bio-load how much do you feed

do you have a skimmer.

I would not do more than say 30% a week. You need to find the root of all your nitrate.

 

[Jim Morrison]

I found that doing water changes doesnt help nitrates unless your changing very large portions of your water every week. 60 ppm is starting to be on the high end but not terrible. Soft corals should be able to take it. If you wanna lower them get a skimmer if you dont have one, get about one pound per gallon of live rock, and make sure your not over feeding. If you want to get them less than 10 your gunna have to get a denitrator or use the vodka method. I would blame the problems your having with your leather on phosphates rather than nitrates cause thats a much more common and deadly problem.

 

[serpentman]

I agree with Tony. Weekly water changes of 25-30% will help you bring your levels down. However, you probably need to do some investigation into their cause to prevent them from creeping back up.

 

[TheReefer00]

thanks guys I think my problem is I wasn't doing enough of a water change I was doing 2 almost full 5 gallon buckets but it was closer to 8 gallons and every once in awhile doing a water change in the middle of the month and over 2 years i think it just built up. I do have a protein skimmer and live rock. The test kit I barrowed just does nitrate, nitrite, amonia, and ph. I need to test for calcium and phosphate soon. any help getting a good kit would be much appreciated. you can check out my tank on youtube at Fred's 55 gallon reef 5-18-09. Thanks again

 

[AD87]

Personally I dont test for nitrates or phosphates since it hard to really get an accurate reading. I would use a Salifert for the nitrate if you dead set on testing it.

 

[Steve175]

Test your freshly mixed SW as well. I was having an algae bloom, found my nitrates to be 50 and then tested my RODI SW and found it to be 25: New membrane and filters have been ordered.