nitrate level

[drevel8]

hi everyone. I have had my tank now for about 3 to 4 months. it has completed its cycle and i have fish in it now. i am running a protein skimmer a sump tank its a 44 gallon tank i guess pretty basic. Inside it i have four fish and two cleaner shrimp. 44 pounds of live rock, some live coral, and live sand. Anyways this is all leading up to my question and i know normally in here when you ask a question the first things everyone asks of course is what does my system consist of so thats why i tried to list as much as i can think of. My question is this. for the past few weeks my nitrate level has been a little high. its at about 40. all my other levels are great but how do i lower this some or do i even need to? It happened around the time i put all the live rock in thats when it spiked up. Since then i was told to take the bio balls out of the sump tank that filters the water cause the live rock would replace the need for the bio balls and i have also done a few water changes but still its at 40.. Someone please help me out with this!!! Thank you

 

[mikenpam]

If nitrates spiked up with the live rock than my guess would be that you are still cycling. Was your live rock cured when you purchased it? If it was not then for sure it would begin to cycle and it could take awhile for the nitrates to settle.

A second guess may be that you also added fish shortly after adding the rock. If so is it possible that you are over feeding?

Are you using tap water or RO?

 

[drevel8]

the live rock was cured and i use only ro water and salt water when i do any kind of water changes. yes i did add my fish around the time of the live rock, and i feed the fish about twice a day

 

[dchao]

You need a good protein skimmer in the sump too. A skimmer will remove most of the dissolved organic matters before they break down into nitrate.

 

[racrumrine]

Suggest you cut feeding the fish to only once a day.

How much water do you change in a water change? How often do you do the changes? You can reduce the nitrates by doing more frequent changes. In a skimmerless tank, I do about 20% at a time.

After a skimmer, the next best thing is to have a ball of Chaeto growing in the sump. With a skimmer alone, I could never get nitrates to zero.

Best of luck,

Roy