Giving up.. nitrates will not come down.

[Thatdude156]

My tank has been running for nearly a year and I haven’t had much growth from any of my coral. I started with easy stuff like mushrooms, duncans, and candy canes. Some stuff earlier on grew a few new heads I had also gotten a hammer and torch after a while and they didn’t make it more than 2 months. I realize that I should’ve had my testing done with much better results before getting anymore coral so now I’ve given up on buying anything new.

The tank is a 20 gallon long with a 10g sump. I have the middle chamber setup with chaeto and also running a filter cup with filter floss. Water changes are 5 gallons weekly. Every time I do water test my nitrate comes back with around .50 ppm. My urchin and fish have done well in these conditions, but I’m not enjoying the hobby anymore due to my failure with keeping ideal conditions and coral.

 

[dwair]

Don't give up! These are fixable issues!

Is the Chaeto growing well? You harvesting every week? What kind of light are you using on the Fuge?

Also you say .50 ppm, do you mean 50ppm? Not .5? Big difference.

 

[MaxTremors]

Have you tried carbon dosing? Are you running a skimmer? Are you doing what you can to vacuum out detritus/cleaning out under rocks etc.? Do you have sand? What, how much, and how often are you feeding? Even with nitrates 50ppm, your corals shouldn’t be dying. What are your other params and are they stable? What test kits are you using?

edit: and if stony corals are proving too sensitive to your nitrates, soft corals will thrive at 50ppm.

 

[ninjamyst]

What else are you looking to export nutrients? Skimmer? Carbon? GFO?

A small amount of nitrate is necessary. You do NOT want 0 nitrate.

 

[Dom]

My tank has been running for nearly a year and I haven’t had much growth from any of my coral. I started with easy stuff like mushrooms, duncans, and candy canes. Some stuff earlier on grew a few new heads I had also gotten a hammer and torch after a while and they didn’t make it more than 2 months. I realize that I should’ve had my testing done with much better results before getting anymore coral so now I’ve given up on buying anything new.

The tank is a 20 gallon long with a 10g sump. I have the middle chamber setup with chaeto and also running a filter cup with filter floss. Water changes are 5 gallons weekly. Every time I do water test my nitrate comes back with around .50 ppm. My urchin and fish have done well in these conditions, but I’m not enjoying the hobby anymore due to my failure with keeping ideal conditions and coral.

You may have a bad test kit. Bring a sample to a local fish store and have them check your results.

 

[Thatdude156]

Have you tried carbon dosing? Are you running a skimmer? Are you doing what you can to vacuum out detritus/cleaning out under rocks etc.? Do you have sand? What, how much, and how often are you feeding? Even with nitrates 50ppm, your corals shouldn’t be dying. What are your other params and are they stable? What test kits are you using?

edit: and if stony corals are proving too sensitive to your nitrates, soft corals will thrive at 50ppm.

Sorry I do mean 50ppm. Carbon dosing may be my only and last option. I don’t run a skimmer and my chaeto doesn’t seem to show much growth either. I run the light for 12 hours. I try to keep the sump as clean as possible, but I haven’t vacuumed the sand in my DT. I have different brands of test. Ammonia is just API and comes out at 0. Nitrates is Salifert. Alk is Hanna and comes out at 11dkh. Neos for phosphate and I wasn’t able to get a reading from it.

 

[MaxTremors]

Sorry I do mean 50ppm. Carbon dosing may be my only and last option. I don’t run a skimmer and my chaeto doesn’t seem to show much growth either. I run the light for 12 hours. I try to keep the sump as clean as possible, but I haven’t vacuumed the sand in my DT. I have different brands of test. Ammonia is just API and comes out at 0. Nitrates is Salifert. Alk is Hanna and comes out at 11dkh. Neos for phosphate and I wasn’t able to get a reading from it.

I would definitely recommend vacuuming the sand. Carbon dosing might be a good option at this point, but you need a protein skimmer to carbon dose.

 

[Pistondog]

Get a better light for the chaeto, and raise it to the surface to maximize par.

 

[SchrutesReefs]

If you mentioned this already, I apologize… but how often do you change your filter media? Might be quite a buildup there since you don’t run a skimmer.

 

[FishyFishFish]

Any fish? How often are you feeding (and what)?

 

[Reeffraff]

Elevated nitrates are simply a result of an imbalance of import vs export. Currently you are importing much more than exporting. Input is from fish food, coral food or direct N dosing (which I doubt you are doing). To reduce import, stop adding any sort of coral foods if you are currently doing so. Reduce amount you are feeing the fish and/or remove some fish from the tank. There are a lot more options for export, some of which have already been covered. If you're not getting fast growth in your refugium with 50 ppm nitrates, your light is painfully insufficient. This would be the first place I would start to boost export. A much more intense light, specialized to growth plants will help. Cleaning filter socks every few days will boost export, as will adding a skimmer or some nitrate reducing media blocks (although these take a while to get going). Adding a skimmer will also permit carbon dosing

 

[vetteguy53081]

What test kits are you using? You may be getting false readings. Add a pouch of ChemiPure Blue or Elite which will lower nitrates and keep them in check thereafter

 

[arking_mark]

Sorry I do mean 50ppm. Carbon dosing may be my only and last option. I don’t run a skimmer and my chaeto doesn’t seem to show much growth either. I run the light for 12 hours. I try to keep the sump as clean as possible, but I haven’t vacuumed the sand in my DT. I have different brands of test. Ammonia is just API and comes out at 0. Nitrates is Salifert. Alk is Hanna and comes out at 11dkh. Neos for phosphate and I wasn’t able to get a reading from it.

If your PO4 is 0, you may be PO4 limited and may actually need some PO4 to bring down your nitrates.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

If your PO4 is 0, you may be PO4 limited and may actually need some PO4 to bring down your nitrates.

Yup. Cheato needs both to function

 

[Tired]

You need phosphate for photosynthetic organisms to survive and grow. That's more likely to be what's impeding your coral than the high nitrates. Some reef tanks have that much nitrate, or higher, and healthy corals.

Plus, if you get your phosphate up, all the stuff that needs it will kick into action and likely reduce the nitrates.

 

[amsterdam_reefer]

Without po4 you wont get no3 down try to up youre po4 around 0.08 then u have better luck bringing down youre nitrates

 

[Pistondog]

It would be unusual to have nitrate 50 ppm and no po4. Get a better grow light.
For example

 

[BeachWater2]

When things stop growing (especially algae), and nothing is terribly wrong, my experience is that nutrients are limited (especially trace nutrients, or phosphate). Plants need food as well as light. You can try "Chaeto Grow" or "Ferrion", neither add phosphate or nitrate.

Double check your test number. 0.5 ppm nitrate is nothing.

You may have bad water. Try adding enough "Prime" de-chlorinater to treat the tank, directly to the tank, and see what happens. Follow directions. If everything gets happy, you know there was chlorine or chloramine in your tank water. Water companies change the amount of chlorine and chloramine in the water depending on need, so that could explain the change.

My understanding is that RO/DI, unless it has a "catalytic carbon" filter, does not remove chloramine. Chlorine yes, Chloramine no. Chloramine is chlorine bonded to ammonia. Only a catalytic carbon block breaks the chlorine up from the ammonia, which then has to be removed by de-ionization. You can check to see if there are chloramines in the water by looking up the local water company water quality report. BRS TV has some videos about it.

How do you de-chlorinate? If you are using Prime you have to add it to all of the new water all at once. You can't put some water in a bucket, put the Prime in, and then fill the rest up. So, if there is already any chlorine or chloramine in your tank water, water changes with treated water won't get rid of it.

 

[Thatdude156]

You need phosphate for photosynthetic organisms to survive and grow. That's more likely to be what's impeding your coral than the high nitrates. Some reef tanks have that much nitrate, or higher, and healthy corals.

Plus, if you get your phosphate up, all the stuff that needs it will kick into action and likely reduce the nitrates.

This is my next concern. I’ve tested many times and could never read Phosphates. Today was the same result. My mushrooms are pale/becoming transparent. My zoas have not grown any new polyps and are micro size. Even my Hollywood stunner has not grown and this is apparently a fast growing chalice. If it’s really a phosphate issue should I just start feeding more or should I dose phosphates?

 

[Pistondog]

This is my next concern. I’ve tested many times and could never read Phosphates. Today was the same result. My mushrooms are pale/becoming transparent. My zoas have not grown any new polyps and are micro size. Even my Hollywood stunner has not grown and this is apparently a fast growing chalice. If it’s really a phosphate issue should I just start feeding more or should I dose phosphates?

Use reef roids twice a week, they are mostly phosphate. How are you testing phosphate?