Need Help with Nitrate Levels

af4evr13

Member
Hello Fellow reefers. I need some help maintaining a lower overall Nitrate level.
I have a 90 Gallon saltwater tank. The tank is 5 months old. I have 90 lbs of live rocks, about 2 inches on average layer of sand bed. I have a protein skimmer, 1 power head for circulation. The tank is a reefer 350 set up.
I do 10 to 15 percent water changes weekly and I feed once a day.
Fish, 2 clowns, 3 damsels, 1 goby...Inverts 4 emerald crabs..approximately 15 hermit crabs and 10 snails....many of my original cleaning crew died off.
All my other water parameters are good but no mater what I do I can not get lower than about 20 ppm Nitrates. Any suggestions on how I can lower these levels would be greatly appreciated!
 
For a 5 month old fish tank you are doing just fine...20ppm is not bad.
It will likely drop lower on its own over time...

As stated simple carbon dosing works very well and only requires simple white vinegar.
Search google for vinegar dosing chart and follow it..
or just continue what you are doing as 20ppm is totally fine for fish,etc...
 
20ppm is ok for many corals...just dont expect sps/acros to do well..

Typically a tank seems to mature around the year mark..
 
I'd be very careful with carbon dosing at this stage. I carbon dosed on my previous tank with good results, however it was an established system and I took it slowly. When I started my current system I started to carbon dose and got an algae bloom so bad it almost wiped out my system.
At 5 months old your system is not yet mature, give it time to settle before starting to dose products, are you noticing negative effects in your fish or any hair algae appearing?
Which of your CUC died? I threw all my hermit crabs in my sump, they will most likely start to kill your snails at some point!
 
Back
Top