How to get Back to Zero?

[KaniRyde]

While over feeding my tank in order to keep my new anthias alive and eating, my nitrates have climbed up from zero to 50 ppm. I have a 50 gallon that is SPS dominated and now have brown tips and I even lost a few frags.

My question is how often can I do water changes to get back down to Zero? 10% every day, every other day, once a week. How Often?

 

[rsw686]

Well a 10% water change will reduce your nitrate 10%. To get anywhere you really need to look into 50% or greater water changes.

If you change 25%

1st 37.5ppm
2nd 28ppm
3rd 21ppm
4th 15ppm
5th 11ppm

You can see this isn't very effective. You've changed out 185gal of water and are at 11ppm. If you go with 50%

1st 25ppm
2nd 12.5ppm
3rd 6.25ppm

You've changed out 150gal of water and are down to 6ppm. Just something to think about.

 

[Percula9]

Was trying to save a Anthias worth the loss of your sps? I guess you learned your lesson the hard way. Maybe it's time to add a refugium. Best thing I ever did for my tank.

 

[KaniRyde]

I thought that 50% water changes might have a negative effect on the bio-load.

I have a refugium which has worked great for almost a year. And its never worth it when you loss a SPS.

 

[bertoni]

This article covers nitrate problems:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/august2003/chem.htm

Water changes tend to be rather cumbersome and typically don't do much if there's an underlying problem. If you want to try to save some corals, a series of 25% changes might help.

Growing and harvesting a macroalga is a common way to deal with nitrate problems. What's in your refugium?

Reducing the feeding might help a lot, as a short-term (or perhaps long-term) solution. Better skimming often is useful.

 

[rsw686]

The underlying problem was the overfeeding which was stated in the first post. Water changes will reduce it to a manageable level. I would do a 50% water change and let the macro algae work from there.

Performing a large water change will not affect the biological filtration. The majority of the bacteria is on your live rock and not floating in the water. I've done a large water change before without issue. Just make sure to match the temp and salinity, and that the water is mixed overnight to properly aerate it.

 

[ikaros]

i do 30 gallon water changes every 2 weeks and my tank hardly ever gets over 5, water changes should help unless you have another problem and its not the overfeeding but probably is

 

[KaniRyde]

Thanks I will do a 50% water change this weekend and a 25% next week and see if it helps.

 

[Sk8r]

Bertoni, I've used Amquel in a dire emergency in an SPS tank and didn't have ill effects that I could attribute to that rather than the ammonia that was already at issue. Might it serve as a standby in case it really goes bad?

And, KaniRyde, have you tested for ammonia? If that's going on, a little carbon might help.

 

[bertoni]

Amquel can be useful during an ammonia spike. There are some issues with using it, though. You'd need a salicylate or SeaChem ammonia test if you want to know the free ammonia, but, more importantly, I suspect continued dosing is needed until all the ammonia (bound and unbound) is processed out of the water.

 

[KaniRyde]

My tank test zero for ammonia and zero for nitrite.

 

[romunov]

As it should. Ammonia spikes are usually not very lasting. They're the preferred form of nitrogen for algae, so it's in very high demand.

 

[azocean]

The best way to get back to zero is not a 50% water change that could have bad effect for a novice. Look at melevsreef.com. You can take 20gallon trash can and fill with 10 gallons RODI salt water and take 10% of dirty salt water and mix with the clean and put 10%mixed water back in and start all over again and keep doing this untill zero stress free for any tank, but it does waste alot or RO and salt but this has been the best way if you do not have a refugium once I put in a fuge I was always a zero.

 

[kev apsley]

stay on top of your Water Changes if you intend to feed a lot and don't have sufficent nutrient export

 

[Akrite]

I found that large water changes work.

 

[nctommy]

I month ago I had a similar sitiuation. About mid july I started noticing some die off of my sps. I tested my alk, calcium, pH, watched my temp everything seemed fine. I normally don't test my nitrate due to the export systems I use, fuge with chaeto and a remote DSB. I always have zero testing so I rarely tested it. Well I give it a test and the nitrate is at 25 ppm and rising each day. I figure it is from the die off and start doing water changes every other day. I use filtered water from a aquaculture facility to do my water changes so the NO3 goes down some. Well, I continue doing this and the die off continues. I can't figure out why. I test nitrates again and they are at 50 ppm. Now I am scrambling for a week testing everything and cannot find any problem. Finally I decide to test my TDS of my RODI I use for top off, and my randy's two part and I find the problem. My TDS reads out at 105 ppm. Every day I add 2 or 3 gallons of topoff to my tank. I rush out and get another RO filter to get top off down to a manageable level until I ordered a whole new set, took about a week to get. I did a 30 percent change two days in a row and continue with 20 percent changes weekly since then and my nitrate is still at 5 ppm today. Die off has stopped and some have started to grow back. I only lost 1 colony, but lesson learned. I just replaced my RO in November and had done a second replacement of DI and prefilters around memorial day. I should have suspected that the prefilters and the DI would be used up quickly as the smell of the tap water has a distinct odor of chlorine during the summer. So what is my point, test your TDS before you do any water changes or you might be compounding the problem.