Nitrate problem

[Betta-Chetta]

I take care of my father in laws jbj 45gal. For whatever reason the past few months he has had high nitrates and no matter what I do it won’t go down. I finally got it down from 160ppm to 40ppm but it won’t get any lower. What do y’all recommend? He has a protein skimmer and it’s doing a great job. It’s a mixed reef with softies, lps and sps. Has 6 fish; 2 damsels, 2 clowns, 1 coral beauty and 1 yellow watchman. Only corals he has lost is frogspawns and hammers nothing else and hasn’t lost any fish. I do water changes every two weeks of 25%. Also only feeds tank once every two days. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Crabs McJones]

I take care of my father in laws jbj 45gal. For whatever reason the past few months he has had high nitrates and no matter what I do it won’t go down. I finally got it down from 160ppm to 40ppm but it won’t get any lower. What do y’all recommend? He has a protein skimmer and it’s doing a great job. It’s a mixed reef with softies, lps and sps. Has 6 fish; 2 damsels, 2 clowns, 1 coral beauty and 1 yellow watchman. Only corals he has lost is frogspawns and hammers nothing else and hasn’t lost any fish. I do water changes every two weeks of 25%. Also only feeds tank once every two days. Any ideas? Thanks!

How much are you feeding every two days? You may want to change to weekly water changes, get the nutrients out before they pile up

 

[lapin]

So the tank has been fine for years and now high nitrates? What ever was keeping the nitrates in check has finally reached its limits. You will need to find another form of nitrate reduction. Macro algae in a fuge, algae turf scrubber, bio pellet reactor, carbon dosing and there are more solutions.

 

[Betta-Chetta]

How much are you feeding every two days? You may want to change to weekly water changes, get the nutrients out before they pile up

Feed maybe 2ml of frozen food and all of it gets eaten up

 

[CjnBrn2]

I had the same issues with mine. Weekly water changes and feeding every 3 days didn’t help. Started dosing nopox and that stuff works wonders. Highly recommend it while try to trouble shoot where the problem is.

 

[Betta-Chetta]

I had the same issues with mine. Weekly water changes and feeding every 3 days didn’t help. Started dosing nopox and that stuff works wonders. Highly recommend it while try to trouble shoot where the problem is.

Nopox? What is that?

 

[CjnBrn2]

Nopox? What is that?

Red Sea makes it and it’s a way to regulate your nitrate and phosphate levels. Granted, it is always better to fix the problem at the souce but this stuff will fix your problem in the meantime. Very affordable and the directions on the box are easy to read.

 

[Betta-Chetta]

So the tank has been fine for years and now high nitrates? What ever was keeping the nitrates in check has finally reached its limits. You will need to find another form of nitrate reduction. Macro algae in a fuge, algae turf scrubber, bio pellet reactor, carbon dosing and there are more solutions.

I agree on the fuge. I have one on my 60 gallon cube reef and it does great. Only problem is he doesn’t want to add all this extra stuff so just trying to find other ways of trying to solve the problem. Tank went nuts because he went to an lfs and they told him to does all of these elements everyday, feed your fish everyday and feed your coral reef roids everyday. So now I’m doing damage control.

 

[CODE3EMT]

Red Sea NOPOX (aka. No3..... Nitrates & Po4....... Phosphates) I would also consider vacuuming the sand if he has any.... suck all that crap out of there. Make sure your using R/O water. 45 gallons leaves very little wiggle room for water parameter problems, after you factor sand and rock displacement...... it's really more like a 38 gallon tank. I used to have a Fusion 40 and all was fine and dandy for a year then all hell broke loose.....what I discovered was tons and tons of decay and detritus that was trapped & settled in that rear built AIO sump thingy.

 

[Betta-Chetta]

Red Sea NOPOX (aka. No3..... Nitrates & Po4....... Phosphates) I would also consider vacuuming the sand if he has any.... suck all that crap out of there. Make sure your using R/O water. 45 gallons leaves very little wiggle room for water parameter problems, after you factor sand and rock displacement...... it's really more like a 38 gallon tank. I used to have a Fusion 40 and all was fine and dandy for a year then all hell broke loose.....what I discovered was tons and tons of decay and detritus that was trapped & settled in that rear built AIO sump thingy.

What did you do to fix that? I use r/o water and always vacuum the sand bed

 

[CODE3EMT]

I'm assuming you have that AIO sump in the rear? I shut down the return pump, scrubbed the inner chambers as best as I could, sucked all the water out of the sump area & baffles, filled with clean R/O water at 1.025 gravity. Started to dose Red Sea NoPox and my Fusion 40 started to do much better as far as Nitrates and Algae. Lots of stuff gets trapped back there trust me. Are you using any type of pre-filter before water from the display goes into the sump area? That will help significantly. The problem with those rear AIO (all in one) is they don't give you tons of room for your hands to get into.