high nitrates what to do?

[beeker]

Well i recently checked my water quality and found my nitrates are really high... like 10 ppm, i have removed the bio bal from my skimmer since it had been there 6 months. I replaced it with live rock rubble and some calurpa algea, i have done 2 water changes since sunday and my nitrates are still pretty high. I also replaced the carbon and filter pad in my magnum 350.

only thing i can think of is i haven't seen my watchman goby in a few days... is there anything i can do beside water changes to help get rid of the nitrates?

amonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 10 ppm
salinity 1.024

temp 79 degrees

everything else has been spot on for the last week except for nitrates and iv'e tryed everything to get rid of them. I cut feeding down a lot to try and counter act it, but to no avail as of yet.

any help is greatly appreciated. skimmer has also been running from 8 am to 10pm at night.

thanks
kyle

 

[rutz81]

First thing, I would defintely run your skimmer 24/7. Carbon may be a good idea to run, but, it will not help the nitrates at all. Do you have sand in your tank? 10 ppm is high, but, it's not really really bad. What kind of skimmer do you have?

 

[beeker]

this is my feedin schedule as of now.

feed DT's live phyto every other day only half a teaspoon(recommended to feed 1 Ml per 25 gallons) my tank is 20 gallons...but 23lbs of rock and 20lbs of sand so only about 15 gallons max.

i feed oyster eggs every other day just like the Dt's but very small amount because i only have 2 monti caps.

i feed brine shrimp every other day inbetween feeding the Dt's and oyster eggs but i also switch this up and feed floating pellets every other time when i would feed brine

so far other than that all i dose is B-ionic once a day 2 Ml and tropic marin A and K elements every day only half a Ml

my corals look great and have been growing but the nitrate issue is scaring me.

 

[beeker]

i have a 2 inch sand-bed and i do run carbon 24/7 have since day one.

i have a CPR bak-pak II

 

[beeker]

do i need a deeper sand bed? also i can't run the skimmer 24/7 since i need sleep....lol (the tank is right next to my bed)

 

[rutz81]

Personally, I don't run sand, but I have read a bunch of threads on sand bed tanks. Basically the idea that sand will lower your nitrates is true, but, I really think you could go a little deeper on your sand bed, maybe 3.5-4". Also, since your running a hang-on skimmer I'm assuming you don't have a sump, more water volume with a deep sand bed will help also. But, honestly, the nitrates may really be coming from leaving your skimmer off overnight. The CPR isn't a super strong skimmer either, so, the combination of possibly not enough sand, skimmer being off for almost 1/2 the day; could defintely be causing your nitrates. Try and keep doing waterchanges regularly, to counteract shutting off the skimmer.

 

[rutz81]

I hear ya on the noise of yor tank, I somehow have become accustomed to sleeping with such a noise from my pumps and skimmer and fans, that many people don't know how I sleep at all.

 

[beeker]

well i didn't have any nitrates that were this high until now...and i actually ran my skimmer less then than i do now, so i don't think it's the skimmer. But if my skimmer is on 12 hours and i only have 15 gallons of water in my tank then all the tank water should be filtered atleast 5x's over in 12 hours so i think that would be plenty to remove the nitrates.

 

[beeker]

i have nasarus snails(7) and a conch(1) to stir my sand bed should i not stir my sand-bed?

 

[rutz81]

You don't have nitrates before because they would take time to build up. I wouldn't believe that it would happen overnight. I'm not guaranteeing that it is defintely the skimmer, but, it's just a suggestion along with the sand.

 

[Horace]

If you have high nutrients, you are simply not processing your input nutrients fast enough. The only way to reduce them long term is to add some way to process them faster or reduce the amount of nutrients going into the tank. There is no reason to not run your skimmer 24/7 ESPECIALLY if you have a nitrate problem. A skimmer does not remove nitrates, it removes the gunk that will degrade into nitrates...there is a big difference. If you have nitrates building up then you need to run that skimmer 24/7 and may want to consider getting a bigger/better one. Just because you didnt have a nitrate problem before means nothing. Your sand bed likely was just filling up with the nutrients and not showing up in yoru water column. Now your sand is likely full and cant absorb anymore and likely is contributing to the problem because its realeasing nutrients. HTH

 

[beeker]

well can i add anything besides another skimmer to get rid of the nitrates faster?

i heard dosing vodka builds up the bacteria that eats nitrates, but i have to have nitrates and phosphates at a decent amount to lower them that way or so iv'e heard/read. Do you think if i started dosing a little vodka at a time it would improve this situation? At the moment i currently don't have a phosphate test kit...which i will be buying soon.

well i have cut down my feeding a lot since i started the tank fine tunning it all along the way,i'm starting to think the nitrates are from my MIA watchman goby ...but since i can't find the corpse or any sign that he is 100% dead i'm also not sure if that is the cause.

i did 2 water changes in the past 2 days, but it didn't seem to lower the nitrates any. Before this i was doing a water change once every two weeks but my nitrates then weren't this high.

 

[Horace]

Well given that you dont have a sump (right?) your kind of limited. I would advise you to run a fuge with only cheato in it. That will eat up alot of phosphates/nitrates for you. Other than that there isnt a whole lot you can do . I doubt a dead watchman would cause your problem either, atleast not long term. Vodka COULD help your problem, but IMO its more of a bandaid for a larger problem. My advice would be to get a better skimmer and then if you still have a problem, you could try vodka. All I can say about vodka is you had better take things VERY VERY VERY SLOW. Otherwise you could easily kill all your SPS by lowering nutrients too fast, or possibly starve them of O2 with a bacterial bloom. You can also cause bacterial infections....

 

[beeker]

i'm currently looking at HOB refugium/skimmer built in...i might end up just selling my skimmer and going with a setup like this.

will this skim just as good or better than my CPR bak-pak 2?

yeah i read a decent amount about vodka dosing, id rather not go that route but if i check nitrates today and they are still high i will be doing another water change. but hopefully i won't have to change my water till thursday(i will be doing it manditory this thursday)

 

[rutz81]

Most likely this combo skimmer/fuge will probably only skim as good maybe a little better than the CPR, since it'll have a fuge. Problem in them is that the skimming portion of these isn't all that great and the fuge section isn't really big enough to do that much either. That is the problem with HOB devices, you are very limited in options, in both skimming and other devices. Before getting that skimmer you are talking about, I'd think putting more sand in there might be a better bet. From what I have heard, the CPR Backpak, is one of the better HOB skimmers. If money is no object, you may want to look at the Deltec HOB skimmer.(MCE600) It is a GREAT skimmer, but, very pricey, it does a hell of a job on my 75G BB system.

 

[beeker]

I only havea 20 gallon high....when i go to redo my whole setup i will look into a 90 gallon with better lights and a nice and big sump and an insane skimmer/CA reactor and the whole works.

this is my first take on a reef tank so i didn't want to spend 100 thousand in my first year so i started with a 20 gallon thinking it would be easier to clean/maintain as long as i'm on top of everything that is happening, so i'm still in the learning stages...though with this hobby i'm sure ill always be learning

well i was hopeing that even with a HOB aquafuge that atleast i would have a little more water volume as well as being able to have sand/macro algea and a skimmer in one.

my tank is only 24" long so length/space is somewhat limited...i don't have a cabinet under my tank to run a fuge so this in my mind is the best i can add to my tank without just starting a whole new/bigger setup.

 

[twon8]

i would stop dosing dt's and the oyster eggs for a while

 

[twon8]

also check the nitrate of the water you are using for water changes.

 

[CeeGee]

If I were trying to run a SPS tank and didn't have a sump the only skimmer I would be running is one of the hang on deltec$. Every other hang on is a piece of garbage as far as I am concerned including the remora pro (I owned one and traded it in on a ASM G3).

I agree with laying off the dt's and oyster eggs.

 

[beeker]

well i did a test on my change water and found it has a nitrate of 5 ppm which isn't a lot compared to the nitrate of my tank.

is there anything i can add to my water to remove it before i intruduce it into my tank? or else i will still have some decent nitrate in my tank if i just continue to change out with this water.