I need more water for water changes to lower nitrates

[reef tank 2.0]

Iv'e run in to a little dilemma here.

I have a 135 gallon DT with a 40 gallon sump.

My DT has finally finished cycling but my nitrates are anywhere from 50-100ppm. I know that water changes can fix this but that's where my problem lies.

Until I can transfer my new inmates from the QT to the DT, I need to get the nitrates down.

I have two 32 gallon brute containers that I use for the saltwater mix and the other for the top off water. I have a float valve in each container that is set at roughly 25-26 gallons of water before it turns off.

I removed about 3-1/2" of water from my DT and replaced it with new saltwater. As you can imagine, the nitrates didn't budge.

With my storage bins being on a utility cart, I don't have the luxury of storing them in a room or in the garage. So I have to keep my storage bins to a smaller size so I can move them around.

Once I empty one bin, It takes 1-2 days before the next batch is ready. Without having 2-3 more bins to assist in these water changes, I'm not quite sure how to go about bringing these nitrates down via a big water change.

Can anyone offer some advice on how I can make these nitrates DROP to ZERO or pretty darn close?

 

[heathlindner25]

biopellet reactor or carbon dosing

 

[Pet Detective]

Unless your "inmates" are extremely expensive hard to keep sps corals, you have nothing to worry about, my nitrates in my FOWLR tank are off the charts....need a new color to match them & there is zero problems for the fish & the tank has been that way for 10+ years, so I know what I'm talking about, I have 9 large saltwater angels and various other fishes, including an Achilles Tang in a 275g tank, so I wouldn't minimize this situation if it was truly a problem.

 

[reef tank 2.0]

As I mentioned, I have no fish in the DT. I have two Percula Clowns in the QT waiting to transfer in. So I am not sure of any "problems" due to nitrates......yet. I just know I need to get them down to zero, or close to.

I have been using the DT tank water to make a water change in the QT so the parameters are the same. So the QT does have nitrates and they seem fine. But I do have plans of getting soft corals, anemonies, and other fish down the road. SPS's are a long ways down the road, if at all.

 

[Pet Detective]

& I am saying.....they do not have to be zero to transfer the clowns, now if this is because you are being overly cautious, ok, so be it, but nitrates are always going to be present & in fact are harmless to fish, even when they are higher than 100ppm+, i'm just trying to relieve you of your "perceived" issue.

 

[CStrickland]

Yeah. It's really common to have a hard time keeping nitrates low in a new tank. Even after the cycle is "done" there's diff bacteria populations balancing out. I keep mine below 10 and the coral are fine. I had an incident last week where they jumped to 40 and the coral didn't seem to mind much at all. The algae liked it tho
People get in trouble chasing nitrates in new tanks and make things worse sometimes.

You could take a lot of water out of the DT and just replace it as you have more ready. Do you have anything in your sump like algae that would mind if you disconnected it and drained the tank down to a few inches above the rocks?
Or why not just tape the float switches open and fill both bins with sw for a 60g change?

 

[reef tank 2.0]

no, my sump is only a sump.....I am not to sure if i want to convert it into a refugium.. So I do not have algae in my sump

I have been warned about this algae break out i will have with high nitrates. Just a matter of time.

I suppose I could do a lot of small water changes, but that's also blowing through a lot of salt

(I know, I can't have my cake and eat it too )

 

[stingeragent]

I'd suggest a new RODI unit if that's what your using. I have a cheapo one that does 75g a day. I can't even think of a unit that would take 1-2 days to fill a 32 gallon tub

 

[reef tank 2.0]

Allow me to rephrase. It only takes a number hours to fill it. Once it's filled, I need to bring it to temperature, then add salt to bring it to the right level. I am not here every minute of the day to observe this so I let it do its thing while im gone. or sometimes through the night. So for me its a good day before it's actually ready to use.

 

[Marchillo]

Couple things. I'm sure the water change made A dent. If you had between 50-100 ppm it could have been 100 now it's 80 ppm. And maybe you have to go through this process a couple of times. Leaving fish in a qt longer isn't a bad thing.

Without knowing your setup it's tough to imagine your dilemma. It's funny because I don't have room for a big mixing station. So I have 6-8 5 gallon Home Depot buckets stacked in a closet. Between my two tanks I change out 15g a week so I mix my water 36 hours before and make adjustments 12 hours before if necessary.

You don't have room to store a few 5 gallon buckets? You can stack 3-4 on top of each other and they don't take up much room.

 

[toothybugs]

I vote for carbon dosing to start. Hit it with a third or half cup of vinegar daily for a week. You will see your skimmer go nuts for a bit then mellow out and you will also see a bunch of slime appear - it's just bacteria films. Take a nitrate reading after 4-5 days and see where you are at, then either jump your dose or do a 32gal change - it should be quite a bit more effective for you that way, and certainly cheaper ($1.99 for a gallon of vinegar at my grocer last night) than half a bucket of salt.

 

[Luke Schnabel]

I had very high nitrate after my cycle as well. Your going to have a bad looking tank with algae untill it settles out. It's what happens to the most of us. Since you have ZERO livestock in the tank, you have no organics being added which turns into nitrate as an end product. Keep doing water changes... It will go down... And since you have no Macro algae you will be dealing with Nitrates all the time unless you use some sort of nitrate remove process.

 

[TrogdorFTW]

NO3PO4x

NO3PO4x

I've had success with red sea's NO3PO4x. It's like carbon dosing for dummies. As far as high nitrates mine were about 32+ppm for a year and I kept 2 clowns a blue tang various damsels invertebrates zoas a hammer coral 4 nems and even a small sps frag with no casualties. I ultimately started carbon dosing to try battle cyanobacteria but its really more for ascetics than anything else.

Don't overreact just move slowly and have patience. Some people have gorgeous coraline encrusted tanks after 3 months but those people have been doing it for a while and know exactly what to do.

 

[reef tank 2.0]

You don't have room to store a few 5 gallon buckets? You can stack 3-4 on top of each other and they don't take up much room.

hmmmmmmm buncha buckets. there are options arnt there........

 

[reef tank 2.0]

i am starting to do the water changes every night/every other night......I will see where that gets me and how long it takes to decrease..................thanks for the help

 

[killinit123]

why dont you fill the brute with as much RO water as possible and just mix the salt right in that? once it is to the right parameters simply get a pump hooked up to a hose and feed it to your DT? once you take out the same amount of DT water flip the switch on the pump and fill you DT with as much new SW as you need. this way there is no hauling buckets and you can do a large WC in no time.

 

[killinit123]

either that or try some sort of carbon dosing.. if your DT is fallow right now anyway you literally have nothing to lose :smokin:

 

[reef tank 2.0]

why dont you fill the brute with as much RO water as possible and just mix the salt right in that? once it is to the right parameters simply get a pump hooked up to a hose and feed it to your DT? once you take out the same amount of DT water flip the switch on the pump and fill you DT with as much new SW as you need. this way there is no hauling buckets and you can do a large WC in no time.

that's what I currently do. Last night, I did this very thing but my nitrates didn't budge which led me to this thread.

I will just have to do them more often till I get this under control

 

[reef tank 2.0]

I will do any kind of dosing later down the road if that's what it comes to. But isn't dosing a temporary band aid and that any issues that cause these nitrates still exist? I'm gonna try the water changes and see what that does for me.....

 

[CStrickland]

I still don't get why you dont just take out like 75% of the water and then add new as it is ready. That would drop your nitrates by 75%, ie. from 50 to 12. It seems wasteful to do smaller ones and remove water that you just put in there the day before yesterday.