High Nitrates

[EcLiPsE_001]

Would high nitrates I mean like Nitrates that read 160 or better on an API test cause zoo's to not want to open and act all kinds of funny???

 

[B-Willz]

yes, you need to get that under control or you will loose them.

 

[CLINTOS]

Does your tank have a lot of red cyno bacteria and green hair algae?

 

[TripleT]

Do you know why you have high nitrates?

I would do a series of large water changes over the next week or two.

 

[Reefman29]

Yes high nitrates do that. What size is your tank? How many fish? Are you overfeeding?

 

[EcLiPsE_001]

No hair algae or red slime, I have no idea as to why they are that high I am running a refugium with chaeto, and do water changes every two weeks, I feed the fish one cube a day, the fish in the tank are breeding tomato clowns, rusty angel, maroon yellow stripe clown, yellow tail damsel, and a strawberry PSEUDOCHROMIS it is a 55g with a 10g fuge. looks like i'm going to do a huge water change today somewhere in the neighborhood of 40g

 

[reelfishy]

Personally I wouldn't to such a big water change like 40G on a 65 system. Like TripleT said. It's better to do 20 gallon WC twice instead of doing a 40g in one shot.

 

[gimme?]

water changes are only a temporary fix. you need to dial in on what is causing the high nitrates. if you do the water changes, and the reason for the nitrates is still there, you aren't fixing the problem.

i had the same issue and had to find the root of the problem first. i changed my feeding habbit and that helped as I was over feeding.

This is just my personal experience, so it might not work for you

 

[CLINTOS]

If you don't have hair algae then your test kit must be off and it is probably something else.

what is your lighting? how old are the bulb's

10-20G every few days should be fine. over 50% in one day imo is way to stressful for the inhabitants.

 

[EcLiPsE_001]

Brand new test kit, waiting for the LFS to open so they can test it too, I have 2-150w 10k MH and 2-96w 420&460nm antinic the antinic bulbs are 2 weeks old the mh are about 7mo old, I will do around 20g a day until they get back to 0 then i will start doing a change every week. its my mothers tank at her house and she does nothing but feed them, I am to take up all of my time to care for it, she is an impulse buyer and does no research just buys stuff and then says look at what i got, then i have to tell her NO NO NO shouldn't have done that, then i hear well can you make it so i can have this?? yea give me money to go buy you the right stuff, why? what i have isn't right? bla bla bla

 

[pro99line]

I was curious if you found out if your test kit was bad or not. I currently have an API nitrate kit that keeps reading 160+ although the Salifert kit at the LFS reads 20. I have emailed API about this.