Help!! Nitrate Spike

[roadkeel]

We started to get a little brown film build up Tuesday and we got up yesterday morning one of our big snails was dead. I tested my water parameters and I had a bad nitrate spike, somewhere between 50 ppm and 100 ppm. So I did a 3 gallon water change in my 29g Biocube and I replaced the my filter floss and thoroughly rinsed my Purigen and Chemipure Elite bags. (I have an Intake basket and fuge, but no skimmer)

I just tested the nitrates again and they are down but are still close to 50 ppm. Will another 3 gallon water change tonight help or is it overkill?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Pete polyp]

I wouldn't do more today, but daily 3 gallon changes will definitely be a good plan of action

 

[Mike in CT]

3 gallons is only about a 10% water change for your tank so you can't expect to reduce by nitrates by more 10% every time you change that much water. I think I might do 5 or so gallons once a day if you were really concerned the nitrate level was having a negative effect on your tank. 5 gallons will give you a little more bang for your buck . I had nitrates well over 50 for an extended time and it did not seem to harm the snails or fish. The few corals I had were not too happy though.

 

[Reefing Madness]

You can get away with doing another 3g water change, considering we advise a 50% WC when they are that high, doing it 3 days in a row.

 

[roadkeel]

Thanks for the advice. I will do another 3 tonight and 5 gallon tomorrow afternoon. My fish seem OK, and my corals and shrimp seem OK. One of our nems we have had for about 3 months seems OK, the other one we got 2 weeks ago doesn't seem to happy. And none of our snails are happy.

One thing I am not sure about, when we starting our tank after we put in the live sand and rock we were only able to add about 21 gallons of water to fill it to the max. So should I be basing my percentages off of the tank size or the actual water amount? At this point it may not matter, I need to change half of the water.

Thanks again.

 

[Mike in CT]

Since your corals and fish seem ok, I think 5 gallons is a good number. No sense stressing out your fish and coral with to much water turnover.

 

[Reefing Madness]

You can still base your WC off of the tank size. If you had 2lbs of LR per gallon, then I'd change that ratio.

 

[roadkeel]

Found something strange. I took my fuge basket out to clean it and the sponge at the bottom of the chamber and I found a bunch of these little guys swimming around. Any idea what they are? Some type of shrimp?

 

[Pete polyp]

Pods

 

[DSP]

Amphipod

 

[roadkeel]

Thanks. Are they good or bad? I only have 2 clowns and a watchman goby so I am not sure I have anything that would eat them.

I am guessing there are different types of pods? I looked at a bottle at a LFS and they were just little specks swimming around. These are at least 15-20 times bigger than those in the bottle.

 

[Reefing Madness]

PODs are a good thing, and a good sign.
Amphipods by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

 

[DSP]

Yes very good and the ones you saw at the store were copepods which are tiny, If you notice tiny white specs on your glass there most likely copepods crawling around .

 

[roadkeel]

Thanks guys for the info and thanks Reefing Madness for the link to the article. You guys have no idea how much help you are to someone who is still trying to figure all this stuff out...

 

[Reefing Madness]