nitrates just wouln't go down

J_Geisinger000

J_Geisinger000

New member
my tank is a 90 gallon bb
tested my nitrates on mon they were 20 ppm

so I did a 12 gallon water change on mon

tues I did a 20 gallon water change
weds. I did a 20 gallon water change in the morning and a 10 gallon in the evening

there is no more diteritus to suck out its all gone

but today when I came home from work I did another test and there still at 20 ppm

how many days in a row am I gonna have to do water changes till they drop?????????

anyone know how long this will take?:thumbdown
 
Re: nitrates just wouln't go down

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8098536#post8098536 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by J_Geisinger000
anyone know how long this will take?:thumbdown
Click to expand...

All I know is it took me 5 months of multiple weekly water changes just to keep my SPS alive before I found the answer :(

You're not gonna like it... SAND.

I gave up, never could get the nitrates below 5 when I was BB and they'd be back up to 10-20 within a day or two of massive water changes. Hope you figure it out ;)
 
imo sand isnt the cause of nitrates, and besides...his tank is a bb tank so theres no sand involved anyways.

But is there stuff dieing? look for a dead sponge...i hear that people will have this and then find a dead sponge thats fouling the whole tank (supposedly they're really bad when they die)

What water are you using?
 
He was saying the solution was sand, sir... To provide more anaerobic areas for the bacteria that eats nitrate...

I would lean more towards how many fish and coral and how often he is feeding his tank vs. skimming efficiency and bio-filter (LR). It's a really simple equation.

(NO3 from the food you add) plus (dying livestock) minus (skimmate) minus (biological filtration) == (current NO3ppm concentraion)

You just need to figure where your calculation is keeping the right side of your equation above zero.

I think doing that many water changes is a bit excessive and may be detrimental to the health of your system, especially if you're not aging your water properly. You may be causeing a dieoff of some sort that's fouling the water a little. Unless you you have livestock that really can't handle that much NO3, sit back, relax, take a deep breath, and think about it... Water changes shouldn't be done more than one a week, unless it's extremely urgent -- say you have an ammonia problem.. and even then, I think multiple wc's during the week isn't necessarily better than riding it out...

Nothing in this hobby happens overnight.. It sounds like that's what you are expecting.


How many lbs of LR do you have in there?
How old is the LR?

What kind of skimmer and gallon rating? is it pulling out good dark skimmate?

What sort of Livestock do you have in there, what do you feed it, and how often?
 
about 100 lbs liverock that ive had since I set the tank up
wich was about 1 and a half years ago

asm g-3 skimmer 180-250 gallon rating depenig where you look

yellow tang maroon clown and lawn mower blennny

feed every other day
as for corals 4 different sps , xenia , hammer, torch and some shrooms

my nitrates rose this high from lack of maintenace previously I havent done any water changes or maintence for about 2 months

My nitrates used to be 0ppm I just want to get them back there
 
Ok, so slow down on the water changes. I think you may just be doing more harm than good and throwing good salt down the drain.

Nothing *should* be dying on your rocks, so the sponge issue shouldn't apply.

Take a turkey baster or high power ph and blast all of the rock and around all of the rock to kick out any detritus caught on it. I would think about doing that once a month or so.

A reef tank should not need wc's solely for nitrate reduction. Trace element supplimentation, yes -- nitrate reduction, no -- thats for FO or FOWLR which are way overstocked with fish compared to nitrate reducing BioFiltration.

A reef tank should naturally reduce nitrates to zero, given your inputs of nitrate producing products can be handled by your biofiltration.

Clean your skimmer and make sure it's pulling out good skimmate? Clean it's impeller and pump in vinegar? I think that's something you're supposed to do annually or biannually with all of your pumps/PH...

I wouldn't expect your nitrates to drop to zero for probably a month or more. The bacteria has to multiply to handle the nitrate, then there will be a slight die-off as they comsume it all which will create a minispike and a mini-pop increase... I'm talking very very minor, but when you think about it in relation to organism population and avail food, it makes sense.

Just make sure you're practicing consistent feeding and husbandry and you should be fine. Make sure you are feeding your fish only what they can catch and eat.

Do an inventory on your clean-up crew. You may need to restock them.

You may want to go out and get a commercial salt-water bacteria suppliment and dose that as suggested.

I would say get some garf grunge from garf.org, but you are bb and I think the benefitial creatures and biodiversity that comes with it might be blown away and into your overflow.
 
Throw a ball of cheato into the tank. Or even better plug in a fuge, with a sand bed, more LR, and chaeto..

Feed less, skim more, try dosing a little sugar (you can search this on RC). Definately dont freak out and do 5 water changes though. 20ppm wont kill your tank.
 
Read Anthony Calfo's thread on remote DSB's to control ntirates. A lot of good information in that thread.
 
Dude, don't add sugar to your tank, unless you read the procedure out of a book from a reputable author with decades in the hobby. Don't dose vodka either, unless you read it out of a book.. Don't listen to the parrots...

Last I checked, there wasn't a sugar fairy that passed over natural reefs and as much as we'd all like to have our own personal vodka fairy, they don't exist to dose reefs either...

You don't have a lot of fish so I think you just need to practice better husbandry. How many snails/hermit crabs/ shrimp do you have in your tank?
 
Well, you're going to need a bit more of a cleanup crew than that, don't you think? I'm no expert on cleanupcrew ratios, but I would at minimum get a cleaner or scarlet shrimp (maybe two maybe mix, but check compatibility). Maybe a couple of peppermint shrimp too.


Considering sites like tbsatwater.com suggest this (which I'm sure is probably twice what you need):
1 pound per gallon Live Sand.
1 Serpent or Brittle star per 50 gal.
2 pounds per gallon Live Rock.
2 Tiger Tail Cucumbers per 50 gal.
1 Blue Leg Hermits per gal.
1 Peppermint shrimp per 50 gal.
1/2 Turbo Snail per gal

I would say your lack of this part of your ecosystem is not helping your nitrate problem... You don't have sand, so ignore the sand stirrers.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8102857#post8102857 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by socalreefer73
Dude, don't add sugar to your tank, unless you read the procedure out of a book from a reputable author with decades in the hobby. Don't dose vodka either, unless you read it out of a book.. Don't listen to the parrots...

Last I checked, there wasn't a sugar fairy that passed over natural reefs and as much as we'd all like to have our own personal vodka fairy, they don't exist to dose reefs either...

You don't have a lot of fish so I think you just need to practice better husbandry. How many snails/hermit crabs/ shrimp do you have in your tank?
Click to expand...


Honestly, 99% of the reef books out there are so outdated as to be useless.


And the argument that you dont see sugar on the reef is inane. YOu dont see Calcium reactors on the reef, or protien skimmers, or LARGE GLASS BOXES.


As to the TBS point, they reccomend about 10 times what you need for cleanup crew...and heres why: *GASP* they sell cleanup crew.
 
Protein skimmer -- wave action

Calc reactor -- reef dissolution -- Ca isn't created by fusion in reef waters...

I wouldn't say your 99% comment is correct. Perhaps 99% of books out there have at least one inaccuracy, but you can in no way say that 99% of all reef books have 100% inaccuracy.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8103879#post8103879 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by socalreefer73
Protein skimmer -- wave action

Calc reactor -- reef dissolution
Click to expand...

Sugar/bacteria - plancton use of solvent nutrients.
 
but again, you're adding nutrients to your tank, circumventing your natural nitrate cycle. You're treating the side-effect, not the underlying issue...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8103904#post8103904 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by socalreefer73
but again, you're adding nutrients to your tank, circumventing your natural nitrate cycle. You're treating the side-effect, not the underlying issue...
Click to expand...

doing water changes is treating the side effect too, as is using a protien skimmer. Everything we do is treating the side effect of the real problem: We're adding food to the system.

using sugar is just as valid of a treatment as a skimmer, or waterchanges.
 
If you have filter sponges on your pumps get rid of them. I forget i left one on my Eheim return and was also getting some nitrate readings and then remembered and it was loaded with gunk, so i removed it and now a few days later i'm at zero.
:D
 
Hey Rich, I was talking to a friend of mine about this and he had a good point, which is the one you just made.

Everything we pretty much do in our tanks is a band-aid. It just seems odd to me that someone with such a big tank and such a small bio-load would need to resort to such measures to reduce nitrates.

I lean towards keeping it as simple and hand-off as possible and I have to admit that I've never had a tank with such volume, but I have read a fair amount of books taking everything in them with a grain of salt. Take the fact that undergravel filters are contained within a lot of them... :lol:

But, the few tanks that I have had have dropped to zero nitrates and maintained that level with minimal intervention -- semi-monthly wc's...


I'm curious, what is your cleanup crew like in your 58g?
 
Ive gotton my tank down to less than five now

the cause for the spike was the diteritus that I let build up on the bottom of my tanks from lack of water changes and rock dusting in the last 2 and a half months
this will not happen again

once I got all of the diteritus syphoned out with my water changes my skimmer was able to pull the rest out that was left in the water column
 
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