Nitrate spike please help!!

reefjunkie53 · Feb 19, 2015

I have a 180 gallon reef I have never had a nitrate spike considering a have a huge refugium with mangroves and macro growing I recently did a 60 gallon water change and for some reason my nitrate level has spiked to about 80 ppm my ammonia level remains at 0 my phosphate is at .25 the water I use is rodi I have my own unit and is tested every use

reefjunkie53 · Feb 19, 2015

I recently lost a couple turbo snails do to falling upside down and me not noticing them do you think this could be y? But also that was before the water change

reefjunkie53 · Feb 19, 2015

Maybe I'm in need of a new test kit cause I just tested again and is showing 40 ppm I am currently using api think I'm going to start swapping out for red sea

beaslbob · Feb 19, 2015

With a system balanced out and stabilized with plant life, A nitrate spike happens when something goes bump in the night. Instead of the ammonia->nitrite-> nitrate aerobic bacteria cycle, the plant life consumes the ammonia (the bacteria doesn't) preventing the ammonia spike. But the plant life will consume less nitrates for nitrogen so you can get a nitrate spike.then.
Then as things settle down, the bacteria gets the ammonia and the plant life gets the nitrates.
Baring anything really really serious like the accidental addition of some toxin, I would just let things correct themselves. My experience is that when I do something I tend to screw it up.
my .02

reefjunkie53 · Feb 19, 2015

I can obviously tell my test kit is working cause when I test my top off water it shows 0 ppm but I do not like how I did 2 test as accurate as possible and they came so far apart I am happy to see the second test only came up 40 ppm when I saw that it was about 80 I freaked never in my reefing time have I had a spike like that

reefjunkie53 · Mar 2, 2015

Well I ordered the Hanna checkers so no more dealing with the api

glb · Mar 2, 2015

reefjunkie53 said:
Well I ordered the Hanna checkers so no more dealing with the api

Much better IMO. Do they have one for nitrates now?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 2, 2015

glb said:
Much better IMO. Do they have one for nitrates now?

No.

reefjunkie53 · Mar 2, 2015

reefjunkie53 · Mar 2, 2015

So far I just ordered calcium alkalinity and phosphate but I will be getting the nitrate soon also[emoji1]

reefjunkie53 · Mar 2, 2015

Exited not to be counting drops all the time I watched a couple review vids and I was sold

reefjunkie53 · Mar 2, 2015

They also have iodine along with the nitrate plus they switched to liquid instead of the powder packets [emoji2]

glb · Mar 3, 2015

Salifert is also good.

UK_Pete · Mar 3, 2015

Are you sure you ordered a hanna nitrate checker? Because like Randy says, I don't think they sell a nitrate checker for salt water. Perhaps its a new product, perhaps I am being a numpty, but I can't find a pocket checker for nitrate on their site. There are several nitrite checkers, but thats not the same thing (nitrite vs nitrate).

Re your high nitrates, since you also have phosphate present, you would seem to have enough to feed plants or bacteria. Are you only using algae to remove nutrients? I've not used algae successfully myself to reduce nutrients before so don't really know what the true potential for that method is, but I can say that carbon dosing like vinegar or vodka would probably work well for you in this situation. Randy uses both algae and carbon so they can be used in tandem.

reefjunkie53 · Mar 3, 2015

Yeah not sure what the nitrates spike was from but I'm back down to zero so I'm happy SPS looks happy right now I just run rox carbon and gfo with a dual reactor and large refugium with macro and a few mangroves and then I also do a 30 gallon water change on my 180 every other week with the reef crystals sometimes once a month but usually every other week I also run a reef octopus protein skimmer

beaslbob · Mar 3, 2015

reefjunkie53 said:
Yeah not sure what the nitrates spike was from but I'm back down to zero so I'm happy SPS looks happy right now I just run rox carbon and gfo with a dual reactor and large refugium with macro and a few mangroves and then I also do a 30 gallon water change on my 180 every other week with the reef crystals sometimes once a month but usually every other week I also run a reef octopus protein skimmer

With the refugium with macro you may have a silent cycle. and things are now back to normal.
Glad things are fine.