Hey everyone. On Thursday (now Sunday) I had a nitrate spike to 50 ppm. Never have I seen nitrates that high in my tank. They usually stay around 5-10 ppm and when it gets above 10ppm I do a water change. I have a 29 gallon reef tank that is 6-7 months old and has been stable until now. I test weekly ever since I got the tank. Today ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 80 ppm. temp 77-78, salinity 1.025. Flame angel I've had for months died this morning. I've used salifert and api tests for these readings. On Thursday when I noticed the spike I did a 5 gallon water change. Yesterday I did a 10 gallon water change. Plan on doing another 10 gallon water change today. I've been dosing algea barn's oceanmagik to raise my pod population.. could this have caused this if I ovedosed? I curently also have an HOB refugium that I added a week or so ago. It has chaeto that is growing and biomedia blocks and marine pure blocks. My current fish in the tank are 1 clown, a diamond watchman goby, and a mandarin. I feed once daily, mysis and calanus mix. Not sure what else to do besides more water changes. I tested the RODI water I make and there is 0 nitrate in it.
Help - Random Nitrate Spike
- Thread starter reefvet2021
- Start date
- Tagged users None
I can see a couple of scenarios
1) Your oceanmagic released high amount of NH3/NH4 that was converted into NO3 rather fast
2) its a false reading caused of elevated NO2 concentration
Sincerely Lasse
1) Your oceanmagic released high amount of NH3/NH4 that was converted into NO3 rather fast
2) its a false reading caused of elevated NO2 concentration
Sincerely Lasse
Make a serie of WC for a week or so - do not feed with oceanomagic and limit the other feed.
If you stop feeding for a couple of days and change 6 gallons a day - your NO3 levels will be like this
This if you do not feed at all - but if you feed sparsely - you maybe end up at 15 - 16 ppm day 10. You can do it slower or faster - if you change 10 G a day - you get this
Sincerely Lasse
If you stop feeding for a couple of days and change 6 gallons a day - your NO3 levels will be like this
| Day | ppm |
1 | 80 |
2 | 64 |
3 | 51 |
4 | 41 |
5 | 33 |
6 | 26 |
7 | 21 |
8 | 17 |
9 | 13 |
10 | 11 |
| Day | ppm |
1 | 80 |
2 | 53 |
3 | 35 |
4 | 23 |
5 | 15 |
6 | 10 |
7 | 7 |
8 | 4 |
9 | 3 |
10 | 2 |
Sincerely Lasse
Thanks! I have a mandarin that eats frozen foods so I will try and feed daily and make sure he still gets to eat. I will work at changing 10 gallons a day. Do you think that is what could've killed my flame angel? I didn't notice any sickness... ate well, etc.
