High nitrates

[audikers]

It's unlikely. Nitrates are a byproduct of breaking down organic matter. Removing anything that creates waste will actually lower nitrates.

the crabs are gone. the tank is empty. It has rock and live sand in it. That is all. Well there is ONE snail in there.

 

[electricreef]

Stop adding ammonia...... any kind of ammonia supplementing is generally not a good idea in the reef hobby. Even for cycling. Go get a small bottle of Seachem stability or a bottle of instant ocean Bio-Spira and dump recommended dosage into tank. Wait and be patient. Once ammonia and nitrites drop to 0, do a 5-10% water change and then add a hardy fish such as a damsel. If you have a sump, do yourself a favor and go grab a bottle of Seachem pond matrix and put it at the bottom of a sump compartment or in a filter bag and just toss it in. You will thank me when your nitrates are undetectable on a regular test kit. Biggest thing out of this is being patient. Everyone's tank acts differently. One might take 10 days to cycle, another might take two months. This is my tank at 18 days

3 fish already in the system on day 19. Used the Red Sea Reef Mature pro kit. One question for you. Are you using RO/DI water?

 

[twilliard]

The best No3 reduction for a 30 gallon tank is water changes
Want to drop it now, do a 50%+ water change

 

[electricreef]

^^^ agreed. However, if you have a lot of nastiness such as nutrients leaching from your rocks because you did not properly cure them, you could be experiencing high nitrates right off the bat because of it. You could do a 100% water change and then two days later have high nitrates again. If you do a 50% water change you are replacing 50% of the dirty water with clean water which should technically cut your readings in half because now only 50% of your water column is dirty nitrate filled water. Did you cure your rock or go with live rock?

 

[Stigigemla]

The Salifert nitrate test actually measures nitrite. (And other brands too) First it reduces nitrate to nitrite and then show a value by color.
I never sell nitrite tests to beginners. Normally a few weeks after you start a new tank the nitrate value you see with the test will increase. But in a week more it will go down again and you know the tank is cycled. So just wait. In about a week the value will be down to 10 or less.

 

[glb]

Purigen helps with nitrates, and gfo helps with phosphates. But in a small tank, water changes can usually fix the problem. What kind of rock do you have???

 

[beaslbob]

I'm pretty new to this and thanks for the advice! I have a 30 gallon biocube, how much macro algae is suggested for something that size?

FWIW on my old 55g I just crammed in 1/4" plastic grid (egg crate) 2-3 inches in from ofthe back glass. and added 2 4' 2 tube flourescent shop lights behind the back glass pointing forware. Macros took off, provided macros and pods for my fish and nitrates dropped on unmeasureable in 3 weeks.

So look at you system and even something a simple as a partition plus some added lights would help.

my .02