Nitrates...

aic

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40 gallon tank
Started with 25-30# of mature LR from friend's tank

3.5-4 weeks into cycle
Ammonia and Nitrate have been at 0 for a week now.
Nitrates are not falling.

I started with a 20% water change, 3 days later did a 30% wc.
Last night I tested the Nitrates and they were still around 40-50ppm.
I changed 50% of the water and today I'm still at 30-40ppm.

The Nitrates are falling, but very slowly. What should I do at this point?
 
Nitrates...

Does your friend's tank suffer from high nitrates? Do you think you had organics in the LR that died off and are now generating the nitrates?

There are pages and pages of threads talking about possible ways to lower nitrates. IMO, if you don't have any livestock in the tank yet, I would wait a couple of weeks and then change all of the water. Give any organics a change to decay and nitrates to leach out of the rocks and then clean up. It won't hurt your cycle and you'll end up using more SW less effectively by partial water changes.


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Does your friend's tank suffer from high nitrates? Do you think you had organics in the LR that died off and are now generating the nitrates?

There are pages and pages of threads talking about possible ways to lower nitrates. IMO, if you don't have any livestock in the tank yet, I would wait a couple of weeks and then change all of the water. Give any organics a change to decay and nitrates to leach out of the rocks and then clean up. It won't hurt your cycle and you'll end up using more SW less effectively by partial water changes.


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No- my friend keeps many tanks with incredible corals. No issues at all.

I do realize there are ways to rid it of Nitrates, but I'm trying to figure out why this is happenning so I can fix the issue before I stock anything.
 
possibly bad water source? have you tested your source water?
I had an issue with water from the LFS, tested high...got an RODI unit at home and making my own and tests zero
 
In most tanks and certainly in a newly cycled tank like yours nitrates will not fall on their own; you need to make a large water change, even up to 100% to get them to come down. If you have enough live rock over time your tank will be populated with denitrifying bacteria in the anerobic zones of the rock, but even this rarely keeps up with the bioload and some sort of nutrient export system is often needed to keep nitrates low long term. For now I would recommend a large water change and then begin to slowly stock your tank. I agree there is a good chance your rock is leaching nitrates or the water you are using has nitrates in it. Assuming your new saltwater does not have nitrates ( you should test it) you may need to make a few 100% water changes over the next few weeks.
 
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