My head hurts!

[rivank]

I have a huge bruise on my forehead and I've pulled out most of my hair in the last 5 days! My problem is nitrates. I took a reading this morning and it read 160. Took water to the LFS and it read 10-20 ppm. Bought new test kit came home tested with old kit and new kit and both read 160 ppm! Bruise on forehead got bigger! Here's my set up.
46 gallon bow front
CBR Pac Back skimmer (not collecting anything unless I push the collectio canister down to where water touches the bottom)
192 watt Coralite
Cascade 700 with carbon and nitra zorb( installed saturday eve)
Turbo 3X UV sterelizer ( installed thursday eve)
Plenum at bottom of tank.

Heres the load:
Banded Coral shrimp
Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
Neon Dotty
2 Emerald Crabs
6 hermits(one just got deshelled while at LFS this am)
Small colony yellow polyps which are slowly turning dark and shrinking
two tiny colonies of other polyps too small to ID yet

Any Ideas folks? I think I've given myself a concussion the last head banging session!

 

[m3rcury]

what test kit are you using? if you are worried about errors in the testing kit (which is what it sounds like), then buy one of the expensive kits (like salifert).

i've also read that certain impurities in the water can affect the transmision of light through the liquid, which would give an inaccurate reading. i can't provide any more detail though. i just vaguely recall reading this somewhere.

also, were both the new and old test kits the same brand and bought in close proximity to each other? if so, perhaps they came from the same batch and that batch is bad?

i would have a tendency to not worry too much if the LFS tested the nitrates at ~20. makes me think it is surely the test kits you have at home or some kind of contamination that is occurring during the testing.

 

[rivank]

Saltwater master is the test kit and I did check the lot numbers and they were different the kits were bought two years apart so.... The LFS uses the same test kit and you see what they tested. I don't think either of the 2 LFS here in town carry anything different but will check the second on my way to work tonite to double check.

 

[m3rcury]

here's another idea. take your test kit to the LFS and ask them if you can use the kit to test their salt water. i'm not sure if they would let you do it, but at least it would provide a "control" against which to check the kit. i bet if you explained what is going on they would let you.

 

[ChickenCannoneer]

I had that test kit and it is a load of crap. Get a Salifert. HTH, Tim

 

[m3rcury]

if your LFS doesn't have salifert or one of the other better brands, then order online. premium aquatics has a pretty good selection and good prices.

oh, and ALWAYS listen to the person with 700 pounds of LR in a 325 gallon tank.

 

[Ewan]

I'm sorry if you mentioned it and I just missed it, but are you using RO/DI water for topoff/saltwater mix?

Sources of nitrate include certain additives, overfeeding, and of course, water. Nitrates are manageable when you can control their input in to your system. If you happen to add poor water to your tank every day, the concentration gets to a point where it's unmanageable without serious reconsideration of your chosen filteration methods.

Also, any additives? What do you add to your tank daily (including food)?

Let's figure this thing out.

-R.

 

[rivank]

I use tap (I know I'm a sinner!) I have no effective way right at the moment to transport RO from LFS and am currently looking at investing in RO/DI filter. Need approval from the missus first! Feeding: I feed a half cube of frozen food once a day and .5 tsp of Kent Marine ZooPlex every 3rd day for my little tiny clams that hitched on the LR. No additives at all other than Amquel plus with WC. I tested my local water supply and got no reading on the nitrates. I take that back I use Marine buffer from SeaChem to help with the Ph it is at 7.8-8.0 and rising slowly with the use.

 

[ChickenCannoneer]

Is that a GOOD thing?

 

[Randall_James]

With only the one fish it would take an awful lot of overfeeding to end up with a nitrate issue.

Now assuming that your levels are in fact triple digits:

I would say that the lack of live rock is going to be an issue if you are going to have coral of any kind. The rock provides oxygen free zones to allow the nitrates to be converted to nitrogen gas. This is why bioball are normally considered "Nitrate factories" they simply do not have anyplace for this conversion.

You could consider a remote dsb (do a search here for it)
It is in essence a deep sand bed that is in a bucket with no light and has tank water that circulates across the top. Is low maintenance and easy to put together.

If you have live rock then I would look towards your substrate.
UV sterilizer is also normally not wanted on a tank with corals as it can remove useful nutrient from the water column

The quick fix at this point is of course water changes to get the levels down and then look to keeping it down

 

[Paulairduck]

ovefeeding

ovefeeding

the frozen foods are usually filled with nitrates. I would feed half of that evey other day. deffinitely get the ro/di, look at melevsreef.com, this is an excellent product at an excellent price. Also if possible upgrade the skimmer, cpr is ok, but just the bare minimum, and without the ro system, you deffinitely need a great skimmer!!!

 

[rivank]

I'm sorry Randall I did omit the fact that I do have 50lbs of LR in the tank as well. My bed is a Plenum with a layer of crushed coral, screen, another layer of crushed coral then live sand. Total depth is about 3.5 in.

 

[Randall_James]

CC could generate some complaints here. (known to create nitrate issues)

Never ran a plenum so unsure of the effects on/with the CC.

 

[rivank]

Who'da thunk it with my nitrate levels!! The gentleman who helped me with the set up about 2 yrs ago will stop by tomorrow to check things out for me. He has ran Plenums for years and has never had problems with Ammonia, 'trites or ' trates and has very beautiful tanks and great sucsses with them. Please keep all the info coming and tips tricks and Ideas. I'm off to work for the eve. and will respond to all when I get home tonite. rik@gra.midco.net and aim screen name is rivank. Thanks all I preciate it much.

 

[Randall_James]

A lot of ways to run a reef tank and many work fine as long as you do it a specific way.

Mixing methods can be a disaster so I would applaud the gentleman with success coming by to look at the setup.

From barebottom to 6"sand beds to Remote sand beds, to 2 inch sandbeds, they are all different and all have successful outcomes but you play heck mixing the styles..

 

[rivank]

Small print on Amquel bottle says may cause false readings with some Nitrate kits!!!! God bless tap water and the things you have to do to it to use it in an aquarium. Going to LFS tomorrow to buy my RO unit and stop torturing myself and my tank!