High Nitrates!!!

[ctiberi]

Hello All. I am new to this hobby and this is my first post at RC.
My Question is actually 2 part -- I have a fairly newly established tank 2 months - and I have what I consider high Nitrates 20 PPM. I am also constatnly batteling green & brown alage that seems to only adhere to the glass of my tank. I did some reading here and other places and believe the two issues to be related, however correct me if I am wrong. I have performed multiple water changes at least (2) of 25% in a week and even added purigen to my filter in an attempt to lower the Nitrates. I have seen no noticible decrease at all. Whatever I Try the Nitrates seem to be steady at this level.

A little background on the tank - It is a 45 gallon with 30 lbs of LR, I have a protein skimmer which is working well and needs to be emptied every few days or so. A cascade 1000 canister filter and 192 watt PC lights. Also have a 300 GPH power head. I started the tank with BioSpire at the suggestion of my LFS and added fish the same day. I think that was a big mistake. I currently have 2 fish and a multitude of snails and crabs. All water changes are performed with tap water. I tested the tap for Nitrates and the test came back at 0 PPM. I also have a friend in the neighborhood that recently started a tank (without the Biospire) and he has almost no alage or nitrates, he also uses tap water. Amonnia and Nitrites are both 0, Ph is 8.0, temp is 79, lighting system typically runs about 10 hours a day.

Any Help, Suggestions, recomendations would be appreciated.

 

[angelsj247]

[welcome]
i wouldnt consider 20 ppm nitrates high.. there just above 0. also you probably have diatoms- brown algea. They are usually there when you first start up a saltwater tank and will eventually disapear within a couple of months.

 

[angelsj247]

to help with the algea you can get certh, astrea and Nassarius snails

 

[ctiberi]

I have about 10 Astrea Snails, they dont seem to be putting a dent in the algea. They also seem kind of sluggish, which I thought I read was due to higher Nitrates?

 

[akrimmel]

dont use tap water but ro water or buy a rodi setup, it will pay for itself.

 

[m3rcury]

i wouldnt consider 20 ppm nitrates high.. there just above 0. also you probably have diatoms- brown algea. They are usually there when you first start up a saltwater tank and will eventually disapear within a couple of months. [/B]

i thought 20 was kind of high. i'm in the same boat - fairly new tank and have some brown stuff on the sand - not all over it, but about 1/4 of the sand has bown discoloration on it. i'm also getting algea on the glass. not to much, i use the mag scrapper every other day or so to keep the visibility good.

when i measure the nitrate, it is about 25 ppm. i was under the impression that the nitrates should definitely be below .5 ppm.

 

[$$sucker]

the canister filter is where your getting your nitrates . that would be my first guess

 

[m3rcury]

i rinse that at least once a week. i am aware that it might cause a problem, but there also seems to be mixed opinions about how much of a problem it actually contributes.

also, would the discoloration on the sand be diatoms? when the lights first come on, there is minor discoloration. but, by the time they turn off, there is quite a bit of discoloration. under my 14k lights, the discoloration looks brown.

 

[ghostrida3]

if you have a reef u definately want your nitrates to be in the single digits, even thought you tested the tap water for nitrates it can still have phospates, have u tested for that?

 

[stupac21]

If you've only had the tank for 2 months, thats normal just wait and don't get too many fish too soon. Add them slowly...

 

[juan jose]

one thing I did to eliminate the brownish algae in my sand was to upgrade my powerheads. I increased the flow in the tank and to my surprise no more brownish sand. Be sure to have good flow, if you only have one pw you might have to consider placing more pw to avoid dead spots.

 

[brownsugar]

i added a blenny to get rid of my algea was frustrated at the slow time it took for the turbo snails to get around in maintaining.

but since you already got some fish in there i would wait till the tank matures for a bit i dunno what the usual rule is its usually one fish every 2 weeks depending on size someone help me out ?

My sand went brown/green anyways during the cycle process and the algea was growing for a while , Thought it was my lights but yeh now its all gone.

Give it a couple months and i second ghostrida3 for phosphate test, also second juan jose to add more flow which i noticed a difference on my sand aswell with another powerhead.

i used tap water initially to fill my tank since it was the only viable option but since then i have been using filtered sea water and gradually replacing it all over time.

i personally think this was one of the reasons i did have excess algea growth to the point where the snails had algea growing on them

 

[b0wenj]

I am new to Reef Central also and was thinking of posting exactly the same kind of post that ctiberi posted.

I have a 29 gallon aquarium that has been up for probably 2 months and have 2 1/2 - 3 inches of aragonite live sand and about 50lbs of live rock, 15 astrea snails, 30 blue leg hermit crabs, 1 brittle star, and 2 clown fish. (I am trying to follow the animal load that tampabay saltwater site recommends in their package)

The tank has 2 power heads, an emperior 400 canister filter (I have already changed the filters 3 times), 2 65watt compact lights (staying on 10 hours a day).

The animals in the tank seem happy I am just unhappy about the green algae sticking to the glass and LR. I clean the algae off the glass everyday and have been changing 5 gallons of water 2-3 times a week using ro/di water. I have tested the nitrate, nitrite, ph, alkalinity, salinity, and amonia and they all seem within the levels that the test kit says they should be for everything to thrive. I also took my water into the LFS and had them test is 3 weeks ago and they said looks great.

I feel like my water quality has declined recently compared to when I first started this. I used to have a ton of copapods on the glass and crawling over the sand floor but sad to say I seen none of them now. I know that is what they were cause I have a friend that saw my tank and he has been doing saltwater for over 5 years.

Any suggestions or advince would be helpful.

 

[ctiberi]

I have not tested for phosphates yet - I will purchase a test kit to find out what level I am at.

Does anyone have any suggestions to lower nitrates? Water chages dont seem to be helping.

As for the Canister - I removed all the fluff and only have carbon Purigen, biorings and a coarse sponge at the bottom to trap large particles.

What in a canister causes high nitrates?

Also as for water flow I have a 300GPH powerhead and the canister is rated at 270GPH ( although its prob more like 160 with media) Is this enough for a 45G Tank?

 

[meco65]

How much do you feed the fish. Over feeding can be a big problem.

 

[ctiberi]

I generally try to feed them what they will eat in a few minutes.

However I do use frozen food which seems to break up and spread around the tank before 100% of it can be consumed.

Nor really sure how to prevent that - maybe unplug all powerheads and filter during feeding?

 

[angelsj247]

i unplug my powerheads during feeding

 

[b0wenj]

I started looking hard at my tank today and noticed the purple starting to come in on the LR and glass. So it looks like you just have to keep at it until it starts to happen. Hooray.......finally!!

 

[juan jose]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7383678#post7383678 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ctiberi
I have not tested for phosphates yet - I will purchase a test kit to find out what level I am at.

Does anyone have any suggestions to lower nitrates? Water chages dont seem to be helping.

As for the Canister - I removed all the fluff and only have carbon Purigen, biorings and a coarse sponge at the bottom to trap large particles.

What in a canister causes high nitrates?

Also as for water flow I have a 300GPH powerhead and the canister is rated at 270GPH ( although its prob more like 160 with media) Is this enough for a 45G Tank?

In regards to the flow I read a nice tip a while ago here at rfc, try with a long string. Hold it inside the tank and where it stands straight or with little movement you have a dead spot, this means you need better flow. I believe for reef you need about 12x-14x of flow.

 

[jumpincactus]

How well are you siphoning the detritus when you do your water changes?

It is helpful to nuke your live rock evey now and then to get all the detritus out of the nooks and crannies. Nuking consists of using a powerhead and aiming all over your rocks. Take care not to topple any corals. Oh thats right you dont have corals yet.

After it all settles down again make sure you clean and rinse all of your mechanical filtration ie: canisters foam blocks etc. Then when you do your water change get as much of the detritus siphoned out that you can.

With your frozen foods make sure you thaw it compltely then rinse it with fresh water. When feeding turn off your filters and powerheads. Crumble the food so that it falls into the tank in smaller pieces to assure that it gets eaten as much as possible.

The diatoms as someone else already mentioned is a normal cycle in new tanks. It will go away provided you arent introducing silicates to your system. When I had my diatom bloom I was using astrea's also. They hardly made a dent in it. So I added Turbos and man did those critters go to town. My live rock looks like live rock again. I can see the coralline again and no more brown diatoms. Hope this helps.