Nitrate issues

[Goodtimes92]

Hello all I'm dealing with high nitrates that will not go down. I was at 160 plus and did multiple water changes to bring that down to 25. In about two weeks it already crept up to 55 plus. I currently have a rollermat, bio pellets, larger skimmer, and turf scrubber to help with it but I'm not sure if it is. My phosphates are at 0 checked with mass spec from icp analysis. Fish do fine. Alk mag and Calc are all in acceptable ranges but I'm also losing corals like encrusters. Softies and zoas seem to do just fine along with rock flowers. I did upgrade my lights to radion r30 g6s. I have a 120 gallon tank. I'm kinda at my ends wits and not sure what else I can do. I also note that I seem to keep getting a small amount of ammonia and nitrite but not sure where it's coming from as nothing has died.

 

[liam]

Sounds like you need to raise phosphate ,low phosphate will be a limiting factor for reducing nitrates.I would dose some kind of liquid phosphate . Some will say just add reef roids but I have found that they raise nitrate also so I would stick to just adding phosphate, you will need an accurate test kit, I find the Hanna low range phosphorus checker to work well enough.
If you are measuring ammonia that could indicate a bacterial imbalance also, maybe add some nitrifying bacteria like fritz or Dr Tim's.Also need to make sure you are not overfeeding.

 

[bobnicaragua]

Rollermat, large skimmer, and turf scrubber and you still have high nitrates. How much are you feeding?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Are you overfeeding (food not being eaten and left to rot)?
Do you have enough flow in the tank to get the water through all your filtration?

 

[Goodtimes92]

Rollermat, large skimmer, and turf scrubber and you still have high nitrates. How much are you feeding?

A few pellets once a day or two days

 

[TheNoLegFisherMan]

Hello all I'm dealing with high nitrates that will not go down. I was at 160 plus and did multiple water changes to bring that down to 25. In about two weeks it already crept up to 55 plus. I currently have a rollermat, bio pellets, larger skimmer, and turf scrubber to help with it but I'm not sure if it is. My phosphates are at 0 checked with mass spec from icp analysis. Fish do fine. Alk mag and Calc are all in acceptable ranges but I'm also losing corals like encrusters. Softies and zoas seem to do just fine along with rock flowers. I did upgrade my lights to radion r30 g6s. I have a 120 gallon tank. I'm kinda at my ends wits and not sure what else I can do. I also note that I seem to keep getting a small amount of ammonia and nitrite but not sure where it's coming from as nothing has died.

hey Goodtimes92, Sharktooth Johnny here! What works best for me is swapping out the ammonia for warm red wine vinegar with a pinch of basil. not only does it smell good but it also works WONDERS. Over And Out!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm not a big fan of biopellets. This may be helpful:

NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

The reasons I'm updating the Vinegar and Vodka dosing charts are two-fold: 1. The ramp was unnecessarily slow. There was no perceived benefit to such a tedious ramp, and it led to reefers quitting because they thought carbon dosing didn't work. 2. The ramp did not scale up correctly...

www.reef2reef.com