Mysterious nitrates and how to get rid of them?

[mandarin chick]

Tank is a 125, now FOWLR. Total stock is 2 clownfish, 2 green chromis, a yellow tang (smaller to mid sized) and a flame hawkfish (mid size). I see a few surviving nassarius snails and hermits as well. The tang and hawkfish have been in there for years. Not sure if lack of growth means anything. Tang color is fine.

I have tested both the ro and catalina waters I use for water changes and top offs, both are consistently no N or P. I do a min 5g, usually 10g change twice a week. Sometimes I do a 50g change - say once a month, though I have missed this massive change some months.

Live rock has to be in the 100lb range, including the sump. I haven't added live sand in a while because I usually get a red algae flush right after.

Only a protein skimmer is running. It's less than a year old - I replaced the old one because it never seemed to get a lot of skim. Neither does the new one. I used to run a wet/dry filter and reactors with various mediums, but since they never seemed to make a difference I stopped.

Fish are fed 2 cubes once daily. It doesn't even last 5 min.

No red algae, minimal hair algae, but the glass films up pretty fast. Coraline is nearly uncontrollable on glass, but not on the live rock. No aiptasia (sp?) where we used to get infestations.

Ph fine, N + P usually very high (ergo no more corals).

LED brights on 8 hours, blues on 10, night on 6. We have played with these times including turning daylights off completely, no difference except that there is no hair algae. Please note: Existing hair algae is on a non-spreading, approx 4 inch by 5 inch patch on 1 rock, it never gets bigger, only smaller when we limited the daylight.

It's been like this for more than a year.

Any thoughts?

 

[farfromsea]

Mysterious nitrates and how to get rid of them?

Maybe the sand bed? I'm experimenting with that as a solution for mine. How often do you vacuum it?


Perhaps adjusting your skimmer will result in reduction of some nutrients as well. Someone else should help with that advice because mine is pretty lame as well lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gmlee]

Had my tank set up for 2 years now and mine is always around 25 ppm. Not concerned about it. One day I will set up a refugium or try bio pellets.

 

[loganlemaster]

I've fought high nitrates in my reef tank for 5 years. I recently started running bio-pellets in a recirculating reactor. My current nitrates are at .25 on a salifert test kit, phosphates are at .01 on hanna meter. I also mix the recommended dosage of GFO into carbon and run that in a BRS reactor. The carbon is exhausted long before the GFO. I have tried to control nitrates with water changes, sand bed vacuuming, and cheato, to no avail. The bio-pellets work best for me, the tumbling rate is critical, also the results can be fast if the pellets are seeded with bacteria.

 

[Tanthaitrung]

Tank is a 125, now FOWLR. Total stock is 2 clownfish, 2 green chromis, a yellow tang (smaller to mid sized) and a flame hawkfish (mid size). I see a few surviving nassarius snails and hermits as well. The tang and hawkfish have been in there for years. Not sure if lack of growth means anything. Tang color is fine.

I have tested both the ro and catalina waters I use for water changes and top offs, both are consistently no N or P. I do a min 5g, usually 10g change twice a week. Sometimes I do a 50g change - say once a month, though I have missed this massive change some months.

Live rock has to be in the 100lb range, including the sump. I haven't added live sand in a while because I usually get a red algae flush right after.

Only a protein skimmer is running. It's less than a year old - I replaced the old one because it never seemed to get a lot of skim. Neither does the new one. I used to run a wet/dry filter and reactors with various mediums, but since they never seemed to make a difference I stopped.

Fish are fed 2 cubes once daily. It doesn't even last 5 min.

No red algae, minimal hair algae, but the glass films up pretty fast. Coraline is nearly uncontrollable on glass, but not on the live rock. No aiptasia (sp?) where we used to get infestations.

Ph fine, N + P usually very high (ergo no more corals).

LED brights on 8 hours, blues on 10, night on 6. We have played with these times including turning daylights off completely, no difference except that there is no hair algae. Please note: Existing hair algae is on a non-spreading, approx 4 inch by 5 inch patch on 1 rock, it never gets bigger, only smaller when we limited the daylight.

It's been like this for more than a year.

Any thoughts?

Do you test TDS from DO water?

What is your skimmer?

How often do you vacuum the sand bed?

 

[gmlee]

I've fought high nitrates in my reef tank for 5 years. I recently started running bio-pellets in a recirculating reactor. My current nitrates are at .25 on a salifert test kit, phosphates are at .01 on hanna meter. I also mix the recommended dosage of GFO into carbon and run that in a BRS reactor. The carbon is exhausted long before the GFO. I have tried to control nitrates with water changes, sand bed vacuuming, and cheato, to no avail. The bio-pellets work best for me, the tumbling rate is critical, also the results can be fast if the pellets are seeded with bacteria.

It took using both bio pellets and GFO to reduce your nitrates????? What size is your tank?

 

[bertoni]

Two cubes a day might be too much food for that amount of live rock, depending on the size of the cubes. How quickly the food is eaten is not that important, since what goes in mostly comes back out. The fish will be fine with the nitrate and phosphate levels as they are, most likely, so you could ignore the levels unless you're sure that you want to add touchy corals.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

Do you rinse the food before you feed it to your fish?

 

[loganlemaster]

It took using both bio pellets and GFO to reduce your nitrates????? What size is your tank?

50 Gallon total system with minimal rock.. Not alot of hiding places for bacteria. GFO keeps phosphates nearly undetectable. I always had nitrates at 25-40 ppm before bio pellets.

 

[mandarin chick]

Maybe the sand bed? I'm experimenting with that as a solution for mine. How often do you vacuum it?


Perhaps adjusting your skimmer will result in reduction of some nutrients as well. Someone else should help with that advice because mine is pretty lame as well lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The sand actually looks good. We blow it off rather than vacuuming at water changes. Not sure if that makes a difference or not. I know we can't blame the skimmer. We replaced the old one and the new one gets the same skims regardless of adjustment.

 

[mandarin chick]

I've fought high nitrates in my reef tank for 5 years. I recently started running bio-pellets in a recirculating reactor. My current nitrates are at .25 on a salifert test kit, phosphates are at .01 on hanna meter. I also mix the recommended dosage of GFO into carbon and run that in a BRS reactor. The carbon is exhausted long before the GFO. I have tried to control nitrates with water changes, sand bed vacuuming, and cheato, to no avail. The bio-pellets work best for me, the tumbling rate is critical, also the results can be fast if the pellets are seeded with bacteria.

Bio-pellets have been used before with no result. Have not tried GFO. Will look into it....

 

[mandarin chick]

Do you test TDS from DO water?

What is your skimmer?

How often do you vacuum the sand bed?

Yes on testing RO and Catalina water before putting it in - though not so much anymore because repeated tests always came back that the water was clean but the tank water wasn't.

Don't vacuum the sand bed. For the most part it's pretty clean. I blow out sand and gravel and take the debris (mostly coming from the live rock) with the water changes. We haven't put new sand in since the last coral died - we're actually sitting pretty low, about 1/2 to 1 inch depending on location in the tank now. Been afraid to do more than surface treatments since I may be removing too much bacteria. Afraid to put new sand in because every time we did in the past we ended up with red algae outbreaks. Could all this be coming from the sand???

Can't remember the brand of the skimmer. Just remember it had more than 100 5 star ratings for tanks up to 250 gallons and was ridiculously expensive - I think $400.

 

[miroch]

Do you have the dual internal overflows?

 

[ali1]

Vodka is your friend

 

[Tanthaitrung]

Yes on testing RO and Catalina water before putting it in - though not so much anymore because repeated tests always came back that the water was clean but the tank water wasn't.

Don't vacuum the sand bed. For the most part it's pretty clean. I blow out sand and gravel and take the debris (mostly coming from the live rock) with the water changes. We haven't put new sand in since the last coral died - we're actually sitting pretty low, about 1/2 to 1 inch depending on location in the tank now. Been afraid to do more than surface treatments since I may be removing too much bacteria. Afraid to put new sand in because every time we did in the past we ended up with red algae outbreaks. Could all this be coming from the sand???

Can't remember the brand of the skimmer. Just remember it had more than 100 5 star ratings for tanks up to 250 gallons and was ridiculously expensive - I think $400.

Your skimmer is fine. Do a bigger water change (50%), decrease food, adjust your skimmer wetter. You need running refugium, GFO or dose NO3O4-X

Good luck

 

[tmz]

For me , a sulfur denitrator took the nitrates down within a month . Organic carbon dosing( vodka and vinegar ) without the sufur denitrator has kept them under 1ppm for the last 6 years or so in a heavily fed system.

 

[Sk8r]

After a near-dieoff due to an 8-day power-out, loss of refugium, several fish, etc, in a reef, tried near everything, but succeeded via 2 moves: a massively better skimmer and dosing of NoPox, plus cleanout of thick sump mulm. Knocked it way back---especially the skimmer improvement did.

 

[RobZilla04]

Don't vacuum the sand bed. For the most part it's pretty clean. I blow out sand and gravel and take the debris (mostly coming from the live rock) with the water changes.

Read this entire post and I see no tested value for your nitrates.

Moving on to the issues, first the piece I quoted. If you are stirring up the sand bed trapped nutrients are being released. The benefit of vacuuming is those nutrients are immediately sucked out of the system with the siphon. You are simply diluting them.

As other have posted, additional reactors or nutrient export methods may help.

I don't know what else you have for filtration, in my head I'm imagining a sump with nothing but a skimmer. Hopefully you have some kind of media filtration. Poly pads are relatively inexpensive and easy to add to the media pad section.

 

[bertoni]

Coarse substrates can trap a lot of debris and cause a nitrate problem, in my experience. If you are very careful about cleaning it, they might be fine, though.

 

[waterman78]

Both RobZilla04 and bertoni are CORRECT. Follow their suggestions/instructions and you show be fine. I will only add to their statements that you should maybe try chaetomorpha in your sump on a reverse light cycle to remove help reduce your nitrate/phosphate issue.... You can also employ a reactor with GFO or Carbon... Any additions at this point WILL make a difference. Good luck and keep us all posted on your outcome.

Larry