Help, nitrates through the roof!!!!

[ReeferBill]

Ok, here is my dilemma. I have a 180 gallon FOWLR with a 75 sump. I have a reef octo skimmer, rated for 250 gallons, 2 stage carbon reactor, and half the sump full of cheato that grows on a reverse light cycle from the tank. Probably 350lbs of LR and a 1" sand bed. In habitants are 8" french, 6" queen, 4" naso, 7" parrotfish, 4 chromis, flame angel, sand sifting goby, 2 clowns, sixline wrasse, royal gramma. I checked nitrates and according to my test they are over 160. I use an API test kit. I have to admit I dont do as normal of water changes as I should, but did one 2 weeks ago. before that I did one a few months ago(I know, I know). Anyway, all my fish looks great, soft corals(all leathers) look fine, GSP are good, and my RBTAs look amazing. Also have some tube nems that dont have a problem. I also have an urchin and sea cucumbers that are perfect. I also have zero algae growth in the tank, no slime, or hair or anything. I used the test kit on new water that I mixed up yesterday, and nitrates came back zero. Then tested my nano tank that has 5 fish in there that I feed regularly, and again zero. But my 180 gets red within 30 seconds of starting the test. So here are my 2 questions..
1. Do you think there is something wrong with the test kit? It seems weird that with nitrates that high, nothing is having a problem.
2. I did a water change last night, of 10%, and am planning to do another water change tomorrow night(48 hours later) of 20%. Is that too fast, or will that cause problems, or should I worry about getting my nitrates back on the scale?
Thanks for any advice.
Bill

 

[Budman's Corals]

Ok, here is my dilemma. I have a 180 gallon FOWLR with a 75 sump. I have a reef octo skimmer, rated for 250 gallons, 2 stage carbon reactor, and half the sump full of cheato that grows on a reverse light cycle from the tank. Probably 350lbs of LR and a 1" sand bed. In habitants are 8" french, 6" queen, 4" naso, 7" parrotfish, 4 chromis, flame angel, sand sifting goby, 2 clowns, sixline wrasse, royal gramma. I checked nitrates and according to my test they are over 160. I use an API test kit. I have to admit I dont do as normal of water changes as I should, but did one 2 weeks ago. before that I did one a few months ago(I know, I know). Anyway, all my fish looks great, soft corals(all leathers) look fine, GSP are good, and my RBTAs look amazing. Also have some tube nems that dont have a problem. I also have an urchin and sea cucumbers that are perfect. I also have zero algae growth in the tank, no slime, or hair or anything. I used the test kit on new water that I mixed up yesterday, and nitrates came back zero. Then tested my nano tank that has 5 fish in there that I feed regularly, and again zero. But my 180 gets red within 30 seconds of starting the test. So here are my 2 questions..
1. Do you think there is something wrong with the test kit? It seems weird that with nitrates that high, nothing is having a problem.
2. I did a water change last night, of 10%, and am planning to do another water change tomorrow night(48 hours later) of 20%. Is that too fast, or will that cause problems, or should I worry about getting my nitrates back on the scale?
Thanks for any advice.
Bill

I had one go bad on me also,I would test some freshly made water see if its reading ok.
but they do go bad
Water changes i would do exactly as you said ..but do the test on clean water first..

Good luck.

 

[ReeferBill]

Hey Bud,
As I said, I used the test kit on my nano tank and newly made water before the water change and it came back zero. Not sure, but I guess I will keep the water changes coming 2 times a week.

 

[Budman's Corals]

Hey Bud,
As I said, I used the test kit on my nano tank and newly made water before the water change and it came back zero. Not sure, but I guess I will keep the water changes coming 2 times a week.

Im sorry must of read right past that part...hmmm.. strange..still dont hurt to do the water changes..I switch from them test kits though casue there so hard to determine the color.. Glad everything is going well though for ya other then the nitrates

 

[Budman's Corals]

How many times did u test it and get high nitrates?

 

[ReeferBill]

Yeah, its so weird that nothing is affected, even sensitive anemones, and yet it comes out so high. I have tested it probably 6-7 times, every time the same result. Its weird that nothing looks wrong, but the vial turns red right away. I have never seen it get that red that fast, so I wonder if something is up with the test kit.

 

[Budman's Corals]

Yeah, its so weird that nothing is affected, even sensitive anemones, and yet it comes out so high. I have tested it probably 6-7 times, every time the same result. Its weird that nothing looks wrong, but the vial turns red right away. I have never seen it get that red that fast, so I wonder if something is up with the test kit.

hmmmm..
well hopefully someone else will chime in with input but stumped me...

6-7 times wow...

can u take any to the lfs let them test

 

[ReeferBill]

Yeah, but he only uses those cheap quick dip tests, although that might reveal the discrepency.

 

[Budman's Corals]

Yeah, but he only uses those cheap quick dip tests, although that might reveal the discrepency.

lol I hear yea,Hell mine charge 2 bucks for each test.they better not be using the dipstick kind lol

 

[danka-cedium]

try a different test kit, and make sure you follow the directions. Some tests have you looking through the top of the container, as some through the side. It really does matter.

 

[beaslbob]

It is not uncommon for new tanks to have nitrates and very high expecially if they are balanced out with algae. The algae may be consuming ammonia and forgoing nitrates until the aerobic bacteria builds up and consumes the ammonia. At that point nitrAtes can drop to unmeasureable levels in a couple of days or so.

this also can happen in mature tank where something shocked the system resulting in increased ammonia.

If things look pretty heathy and the macros are growing strongly I would wait it out. Otherwise I would do everything I could to increase the macros.

But that's just my .02

 

[ReeferBill]

Forgot to mention the tank is 2 years old, and only algae I have in there is the cheato, no other hair, slime or diatoms anywhere in the tank. Cheato is growing like a weed on steriods in the sump, but everything looks amazingly healthy.
I suppose it is possible that the new parrotfish, that came in at 7" long, and the added overfeeding might have caused my spike. I am planning on continuing the water changes, and getting other people to test my water and we will see. Thanks for the response.

 

[Dowtish]

+1 on getting a new and different brand test kit to compare. I really like Salifert test kits. Red Sea has a good one too. And start making yourself do religious water changes. That will always help keep it down. Being that heavy of a bioload and having to feed those big guys, you will always be battling nitrates if you dont do regular WC's.

 

[ReeferBill]

Dow, agreed on that one. I got lazy, because when I bought the angels and tang, there were under 2". So I had about 14" of fish in a 180. Now that is much different, and I never changed my habit of water changes. I can guarantee that it will be different now. Just glad I didnt crash beacuse of it...I hope I still dont. I was always religious about carbon, and skimmer cleanings, just have to do the water change now. Thanks for the post.

 

[mike007]

I had the same problem but my tank had been set up for 10 years. I tried everything and nothing worked. Never could get nitrate level down . I finally pulled all the substrate out and replaced and now it has been running for about a year with 0 nitrates. I also started carbon dosing with excellent results. My opinion is people tend to feed there fish way to much and no matter what you do it is difficult to keep everything in check. With live rock things get trapped and decay causing problems. Also i did not know this but Phosphate accumulates and absorbs into the rock and leachs out.Even Phosphate removers will not always take care of this problem. Thats where carbon dosing comes into play helping rid nitrate and phosphate. I also cut down on my feeding and now everthing is doing great.

 

[Davinci]

Yeah water changes, water changes and more water changes. Also when you vacumm you sand, dont stirr it up. be very careful with how you vacumm. I have een many people just make a mess of their sand bed after they have neglected it for a while and that causes a big nitrate problem. I would also get another test kit. even if its api but a new one. make sure you check the date it was manufactured and try to get it as new as you can.

 

[ReeferBill]

Was your substrate bad and smelly? I agree, I think I was overfeeding my fish, so I cut back on that. I dont mind if my NO3 is 40, but over 100 is too scary for me. I dont think my phosphates are high, since there is no algae growth. I think I just got behind on water changes and need to feed less.

 

[ReeferBill]

I never vacuum my sand, I have a sand sifting goby, and it doesnt look bad. How do you know if the sand needs to be vacuumed?

 

[Davinci]

Although there are plenty of mixed review for this, I believe that a sandbed should always be vacummed. there is detritus that starts to build up in there and i believe that we need to take it out rather than rely on a bacteria to eat it all. i am pretty sure that there is plenty of detritus and uneaten food in the substrate, if you do decide to startvacuming, do so extremly slowly. I would reccomend the smallest of the syphons but try to get a long one. and just do it methodically. vacuming one area and carefully dropping the clean sand back in its place.