really need help with nitrates, getting serious

TOURKID

TOURKID

New member
Hi everbody. I'm starting to really worry about nitrates and Im hoping someone has an idea.

So far... I did research
I was using tap water for the past 4 months, let it sit then added my salt waited two days and would change my water.

I started to notice my nitrates creeping

3 peppermint shrimp died.

I was over feeding

I went to lfs and bought a chemical to lower nitrates and started using it

i did a water change

I found out about distilled and r/o water options.

I did a water change using distilled water (yesterday) then went to lfs and bought 10 gallons of r/o water.

havent used the r/o water yet, but yesterday i had the nitrates down to about 20 and today the (stupid) color chart looks to be closer to 40.

When i do water changes I do 5 gallon changes in my 45 gal tank.

my ph is also low. and Ive been adding kent buffer for 3 days its about 8.0 right now.

My tank looks a little cloudy, and my anemone has two of its sides curled in (looks like a taco shell) the anemone is 'sticking' well to LR, and is eating normaly (2 quaters of a silverslide yesterday evening)

Im getting real nervous. Is there such a thing as to many water changes? i was thinking about using the r/o water today......

hermits and snails are showing no reaction yet
the peppermint shrimp were only a few days old and I dont know if i can credit them dieing due to nitrates.....

please please any tips or ideas will help. i stopped my over feeding 3 days ago now...

ive changed my filter floss every other day since noticing problem
 
How long has the tank been set up?

Do you have a protien skimmer?

Do you have a refugium with some Cheato?

I would keep up with the water changes. You could try doing
atleast a 10 to 15 gal water change. And if the nitrates are still
high do another water change in a couple of days. You can
never do to many water changes.
 
Have you read this?

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/august2003/chem.htm

Need more information. 5 gallons is not too much per week. It should not hurt anything. What type of substrate? Do you have a skimmer?
What type of filtration system? Do you have live rock and how much?

Have you read these things they will help immensely.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.php

Have you been testing your alkalinity and Calcium. Your test kits need to be good test kits. I use Salifert. They are the best.

Buffer does not work good for raising ph. You need to use a 2 part system. See these articles.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/chem.htm

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

I suggest you do some more reading and studying. That is what will help you.

Looks like you tank has been up 4 1/2 months. The water needs to be in excellent shape before you add crustaceans.

Regards,

Pat
 
Can you post what your nitrates started reading at and what they are now? Also, have you tested your tap water for nitrates?
 
Tourkid, helpful if you post your test results for nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, alkalinity and ph, tank size, temperature and type of lighting in a kind of a vertical list when you've got problems. Note how PatMayo did it. Your list of past events is very helpful and good! First of all, if you're having nitrate problems, slow way down or stop on feeding: critters won't have much of an appetite anyway when things are bad, and it's like having a fridge with only spoiled food: there's usually enough for them to scrounge on, if poorly, until you get the problem sorted out, but don't put any more in. Second, do water changes with the ro/di water. Tap has so many problems in it. Test, the full battery of tests, every day, and write down your results, as well as your water changes. This is informative for you as well. Remember that when you put in an additive, you have to wait 24 hours for the next test to mean anything, even if there are evident results like happier fish. Second, never add a second dose until you have tested for effects of the first dose. You've had some problems with your tank, and there are probably things still echoing through the system that will make it slow to correct, but not impossible. Don't add any new critters until this chemistry is 100%. Every critter you add spikes the chemistry and it has to settle: the tank doesn't want any more excitement than it has. Also, be careful not to stir the sand bed. Nastiness lives in layers down there where bacteria work on it and turn it into not-nastiness. But if you overturn it, you've disturbed the machinery. And if you don't have a skimmer, get one, even if you have to get a bank loan! You can put it in a rubber tub for a sump, but get a skimmer: they take out the trash from a tank, and do what your sandbed can't. I use an Urchin skimmer in my 52 gal, and it does a good job for not a horrendous lot of money. Hope that helps.
 
If your filter floss is your main source of bacterial filtration and you're changing it every other day, you might be doing more harm than good. As said before you need to give these guys more information on your bioload and filtration for them to help you.
 
Ok. 45 gal tank.
Live rock , yes, about 40 pounds
skimmer- bought a coarl life cuper skimmer yesterday, its missing parts have to return it today
no refugium or sump

salinity - 1.024
temp - *sigh* 81 no heater plugged in, just refuses to get below this temp, drops to 80 at night sometime
ph 7.8 - 8.0 (have a nice pen for this)
nitrite 0
amonia 0
nitrate - test strip reads 20, drip kit reads a dark 30
calcium- 400 i add calcium from kent every morning
alkalinity- hm, well.. my drip kit doesent have this. my test strip reads the it as blue.. but theyre are no blues its shades of green :(
lighting 130 watts of pc lights (working to upgrade these)
WATER CHANGES - ok, so water changes never hurt. Ive done a 5 gal wter change 4 times this week. thats 20 gallons of a 45 gal tank (did 1 change a day) so does even think I should use 10 gal of r/o water change today?


sk8er .. definately not planning on adding anything my load is

1 maroon clown
1 anemone
20 hermits give or take
5 snails
almost forgot. 2 crabs these were hitchhikers. they are alive and well... cant figure out what they are, but they have lines on theyre face.. real shy,each hides in its own cave


funny thing you should mention gravel. um... ok its crushed coarl
on top with sand under it(regret it but was told by my lfs that was the way to go.. never even told me live sand existed...) either way, funny thing is i just bought a gravel pump.. same day i bought the peppermints and all my water changes since ive done with a gravel pump. been sifting all thru the stuff.


did we find my problem? :(

Im sad.

ok so I just need to confirm that doing a ten gal r/o water change is the way to go.... and should i by a two part ph raiser to add to this? I think my ph buffer isent really doing much because im going so many water changes it never gets a chance to raise it at all before i was putting in more low ph'ed water


oh.. yes, my tap water did have nitrates. just learned that tap water sux, i just really hope it isent to late.

If i can get the parts i need i should be able to get a skimmer running tonight, temporarly.. i have a fully enclosed top on my tank,. and i have big plans on ripping off the back (built in pump and filter) then adding the skimmer and 2 maxi jets to replace the crap that came on the tank. but if a skimmer is going to save my tank i should be able to hang it on the front of the tank where im suppsed to put food thru.. attractive i know., but im not going to do this transformation on my tank till the water is stable.....
 
Last edited:
when i bought my anemone i had the lfs test my water first and it was 'perfect' everything was exactly where it should have been.
this was about two weeks ago.

since then the only changes i remember making were
gravel pump
overfeeding.. for at least 1 1/2 weeks strait
adding 3 shrimp, then taking the 3 dead shrimp out (all died in two days at separate times, they werent left in there i got them out within an hour of death

and ya.. basicly ever since i got this gravel pump ive had problems. but i thought it would be removing all the detruis and food, etc the buckets i would change without the pump, b4 said problems always had a light yellow tint, with the gravel pump the water is dark dark brown
 
ok, im feeling really immpatient and worrisome.. so what i did so far.... changed 5 gal water with r/o water that i added 1/4 teaspoon of ph buffer to. no gravel pump, water was a lil more tinged yellow than it used to be

I went to petsmart to look for a 2 part system but they only had buffers. I came back here to check this thread...

now im going to go exchange my skimmer and get a two part system at my big lfs...

hopefully ill get skimmer up tonight, but I really donno how the thing works so it might take some fiddling with im assumming.....

oh, bought a amonia test while i was at petsmart. its about 0.25 (another drip test)
 
The pH buffer can cause problems. I would suggest that you stop dosing it until you have a real alkalinity test kit. Salifert and SeaTest-FasTest kits have worked for me.

Ammonia is a bad sign, if the test kit is correct. Nitrate won't kill shrimp or fish, but ammonia will. What brand of test kit is it?
 
guess ill take some water with me to the store.. but i hate trusting these guys, theyve put me where im at today with quotes like "this buffer is definately the way to go' 'you dont have to have a skimmer' 'just let your tap water sit out a few days'
 
ok so i got in this huge discussion with the managaer aka reef freak.. after testing my water and me running down my timeline, his opinion is,

since i never sucked the gravel before, it was really poluted and so the first time i did it it spiked the nitrates really high.

but he thinks the root to my problems is specific gravity, i have it at 1.025 by his scale, and said that i needed to slowly lower it to 1.21. and the high salinity causes less oxegen and less oxegen lowers the ph

my nitrates tested 20 with his test and he said most reef aquarists would love to have nitrates this low......

and... he said i need to stop doing water changes trying to fix things, and made me promise to wait a week till the next one... no problem there. jeez

what do you guys think? it makes sense... but in a poll on this forum it says most people prefer 1.025.......
 
Raising the nitrate via siphoning the gravel might be possible, although I never noticed it. Personally, I though my crushed coral (gravelly) substrate was enough of a mess to warrant removing it.

His comments on SG are flat wrong, and nitrate at 20ppm is not all that wonderful, although not a problem for many animals.
 
so hes wrong, but what makes it right.

added the skimmer tonight, dont think its working correctly.....*sigh*
 
my 2 cents / the skimmer is a good skimmer for the buck but it can take a day to break in and really perform right , my gravity is 1.025 and i keep it there ive been told and ive read that a higher gravity is better for inverts , also keep up the water changes until you have expelled all that tap water ( mine out of the tap tests at almost 120 ppm nitrates ) and i do a 6 gallon water change on my 65 gal once a week and my nitrates are at about 10 ppm ( and thats not r/o water i use just DI ) like i said its my 2 cents
 
If you have been overfeeding for awhile the stirring up of your sandbed can release nitrates into your water. Don't overdo it on your gravel cleaning especially now that you are feeding less. Are there any dead spots in your tank where things will settle out? If so you should try to get some water flow into those areas. A skimmer will definately help remove organics in your water which lead to nitrates. One last comment - how are you mixing your salt? I let my salt mix sit for at least a day. I probably don't have to wait that long but it is cloudy right after I mix it. If you are adding it to soon to your tank that could be an issue that is causing the cloudy condition (nothing to do with nitrates.)
 
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