High Nitrate levels

jazzycat123

New member
Hi, we bought a coral on Wednesday and Saturday it was gone. Now our Nitrate levels are around 15 - 20. All other levels are registering normal!

What should we do to lower the Nitrate level? Will this harm the other corals or fish in the tank?


Thanks,
Cathy
 
We set it up in Febuary. I had a 40 gallon and upgraded to the 120. I can send you some pics if you want. We have been struggling with our calcium levels, but all levels are good right now. Calcium is currently 420 and kh is 12.

Would a 5 - 10 gallon water change do any good? We only have about 20 gallon in RO water right now. And we are topping off about 1.5 gallons per day.

Thanks!
 
Do a 10 gallon water change every day for the next 3 days that should bring things back in line.Your kh is high get it down to around 8 & sps will have a better chance .With your tank being slightly new i would wait on any more new additions for a little while.
 
We were told the kh should be 10 - 12 and calcuim around 400 - 450.

We have a couple of acro's (bali blue and a green), a few brains(closed and open), some lps and sps. (hammer, frog spawn, torch, mushrooms, zoa's - orange, blue, green, 3 different types of pagoda's - green, blue, and yellow/brown, green tongue and slipper tongue, clam, Red-orange star fish, bubble anemone, goniapora

Thanks,
Cathy
 
Dont listen to everything you hear.Most of us that keep sps dominant tanks keep are tanks between 7&9 .The kh in ocean water is 8.You are trying to duplicate that as close as possible.I have seen alot of tissue recession at higher kh versus lower.
 
I really think you consider adding a carbon source such as vodka. If you would feel better with a store purchased product buy AZ NO3. I have decided after many methods that carbon addition is the best way to keep nitrates down.
 
Thanks! I have some great pics. Send me an email address and I will share. BTW, we are getting ready to do a 10 gallon water change. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks.

Cathy
 
I would in fact do water changes over a period of time not all at once.
Before trying the Vodka approach, i'd do my research first. When you made that jump in tank size did you use any of your old sand bed or water to help seed it?
Sometimes corals do mind high nitrates (eg mine are at a constant 10) it's fish that stress off of of it IMO correct me if i'm wrong. Although mine have never been that high. With that being said, good luck to you and happy reefing
 
Yes, we transfered everything from the 40 gallon to the 120. We added 3 bags of live sand and about 150 lbs. of live rock.
 
Smaller water changes won't do a thing.

Assuming your nitrates are at 20, and that you have 120g of water in the tank (probably more due to sump volume):

10g is an 8.3% water change, which means it will drop your nitrate level by the same percent. In this case, 1.6 PPM. You won't even notice.

A 50% (60g) water change will drop them by 50%, so down to 10. Another 50% will then drop them to 5, etc.
 
Good luck in your decision making. Only thing that concerns me with doing a big water change is that the tank is fairly new and you may have a mini spike(cycle). I'd do 25% and run some nitrate sponge and go from there.
 
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