Need some advise

[Aquarius]

My tank is now a year old as of yesterday and I have been battling nitrates for some time, finally have been getting them under control with a skimmer and Red Sea. Well, I used Red Sea yesterday per instructions and when I came home today this is what I see

Skimmer going nuts and I tested my water and nitrates and nitrites have sky rocketed. How should I approach this. My hammer heads look fine, but my Duncans have closed up.

 

[Aquarius]

Also what is going on is the more important question.

 

[Aquarius]

90 gallon, 20 gallon sump, 72°

 

[jetmaker]

Also what is going on is the more important question.

Looks like a bacteria bloom. Do you have a uv sterilizer.

 

[Aquarius]

Sg 1.025

 

[Aquarius]

No

 

[aquaman67]

What are you testing Nitrites with?

Did you verify with more than one type of test?

Chasing numbers has caused me much grief.

What exactly is Red Sea?

 

[Aquarius]

Alk and ph is good

 

[Aquarius]

Strips, and it is a biological nitrate and phosphate reducer.

 

[jetmaker]

If it doesn't clear you may want to get one.

 

[Aquarius]

My nitrites were at zero a couple of days ago.

 

[Diesel]

Bac Bloom.
Many ppl who used the Po4/No3 reducer from Redsea got in trouble the same way.
What were your Po4 and No3 before dosing the Redsea Po4/No3 reducer??

What you can do is waterchanges on the moment but foremost it's a waiting game, make sure you keep your skimmer going though.

[HASHTAG]#reefsquad[/HASHTAG]

 

[Salty1962]

Looks like a bacteria bloom. Do you have a uv sterilizer.

+1

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

+1 bacteria bloom. Jet is correct. Test for ammonia. Maybe?
Bacteria is feeding off a lot of something.

 

[Salty1962]

Most NO3 and PO4 reducers achieve the reduction through bacteria. Looks like you got too much bacteria causing the bacterial bloom. JME

 

[Aquarius]

Po4 can't exactly remember and my test kit recently broke. And haven't went and got a new one(tisk tisk) no3 was ridiculous b/c I was using a can and only cleaned it once a month until I began doing more research. Doing a regular water changes and skimming I have brought it down to 80. And now it seems to be around 100 after I just tested it. I did a water change yesterday and dosed with red sea and here we are.

 

[Aquarius]

I hope this will pass, and keep with the elbow grease.

 

[Aquarius]

What could explain the sudden spike in nitrites though?

 

[Aquarius]

And if there is nitrites, does that mean ammonia, i used my last ammonia strip a couple days ago and it was zero.

 

[Aquarius]

So the bacteria has went nuts because of my crazy nitrates and essentially I need to just keep testing skimming and water changing, eventually it should correct? My nems and corals look fine except for my Duncans were closed, usually they are swaying.