How often can I do a 20-30% water change? High nitrate

[Afkomjorgen]

Hello!

trying to help the tank recover from a skimmer that broke and wasn’t working for 2 or 3 weeks. Everything looked great so I didn’t test ( I’m kicking myself ) while I figured out how to get it running again.
Frogspawn started looking a little depressed this week & I just got the skimmer working properly again.
Nitrate ppms were in the 80-160 red range on my API kit.. I did a 20% water change two days ago. Tested today and it’s still in the red. 80ppm?

65 gal tank (49 gal + sump)
All 5 fish are accounted for & doing fine ( 2 clowns, 1 yw goby, orchid dotty, bi col blenny)
Surprisingly the shrimp and crabs are happy and fine as well
Anemones have shown no issues (rainbow bt & sebae)

my only inclination to an issue was that the Frogspawn had a little base skeleton showing.

Can I do a water change essentially every day/ every other Day until this gets sorted out? Is 20-30 gal ok? I don’t have enough buckets to mix more
Anything else I can do?
Thanks!

Other parameters
Salinity 1.025
Ph 8
nitrite 0
Cal 400-500
Kh 9dkh
Nitrate 80+ppm?

a quick thought- if im using sponge material as extra mechanical filtration in my sump, should I be rinsing these out on a regular?

 

[fishguy242]

hi, 20 gal should be fine every other day ,till you get where you want.
I would swish wash sponge in old change water and put back.

 

[Afkomjorgen]

hi, 20 gal should be fine every other day ,till you get where you want.
I would swish wash sponge in old change water and put back.

Thank you!

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Agree with fishguy, every other is fine. I wash out my sponge traps between the fuge and return section about once a month.

 

[Detri50]

Well really, the worst; water changes will do; is change the parameters you dose to your tank. To the parameters your saltwater mix provides. If it was me, I would change my ato to a daily auto water change for 2 weeks, of about 2% a day. And manually top off daily if I cant do both at the same time.