Nitrate

[Lenny_S]

Again... Randy is correct in that nitrate is not really what is killing your critters. You need 100+ppm nitrate to have an effect on most life-forms - you do not have over 100+ ppm, so it is not the nitrate killing thins.

The fact you are seeing such a HUGE spike in nitrates so quickly tells me that there is something causing in influx of other parts to the nitrogen cycle - specifically ammonia. I'd bet that you are really having an ammonia spike - which is causing the deaths - and a little while later, the spike in Nitrate. You really need to start at the beginning of the cycle to make sure you stop the spiral of death.

Figure out what is causing the ammonia (dead critters left in the tank, a non-cycled tank going through its normal set-up stages, cleansers, etc).

Remove what is causing the ammonia and your Nitrate 'problem' will also be fixed.

Actually, nitrate levels above 40 ppm can most definitely kill many different kinds of invertebrates. Since most of the deaths were invertebrates I would not eliminate high nitrate as a probable cause. The clownfish on the other hand was not likely killed by even 80 ppm nitrate. That could have been all sorts of things, but given the nature of the nitrogen cycle, and the high nitrates, ammonia spike is a very real possibility.

 

[Oceansize]

You are the one That said in your first message that invertebrates do not die at anything but 100+. I responded back by saying that mines died at 80 so you're wrong about it not dying at 100+

A) He said it wasn't likely, which is different than saying you're flat-out wrong. If someone with decades of experience and an advanced education that relates specifically to the subject of water chemistry gently suggests that you're coming to an incorrect conclusion about water chemistry, swallow your pride for half a sec and listen to the dude. You'll be smarter for it. None of us regulars here would ever go toe-to-toe with Randy when it comes to water chemistry and there's a reason for that. He's a nice guy and you got off to a wrong start because you took his questions as some sort of disrespect, which is baffling to me. Trust me when I say this: you're going to get a lot of bad advice on this forum. Most people are just taking (educated) guesses about what's wrong with another person's tank, and offering the best they can come up with, and are frequently just plain wrong. Randy is not one of those people. Nobody is perfect, nobody is a god, captive reef chemistry is a relatively new science with no true experts, so I'm not going to sit here and say Randy is never wrong, but if I were a betting man and someone was betting that they were right and Randy was wrong, I'd bet on Randy 100% of the time.

B) You are potentially confusing correlation with causality. Inverts dying when nitrates are at 80 might not mean your inverts die when nitrates are at 80, it could easily be a coincidence. Happens all the time when you're balancing a tank. I added GFO to my tank to reduce phosphates and the polyps on my acros closed up. A logical conclusion would be that my acros do not like GFO and/or extremely low phosphates. But then I took the GFO out, my phosphates rose again, and several weeks later my acro polyps were still not extended. Then I noticed my nitrates were at zero instead of the 2 ppm that I assumed they were, since they've been consistently at 2 ppm for half a year, so I raised my nitrates back up to 2 ppm and started to get acro polyp extension again. The point is, my acro closed up when I added GFO, but the GFO is not why my acro closed up. It closed up because my nitrates dropped at the same time that I added GFO. As I already mentioned, your inverts are probably not dying because nitrates are high, rather your nitrates are high because your inverts are dying.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Actually, nitrate levels above 40 ppm can most definitely kill many different kinds of invertebrates. Since most of the deaths were invertebrates I would not eliminate high nitrate as a probable cause. .

What do you base that on?

Many fine reef tanks have nitrate close to 80 ppm. Richard Ross had that recently (he reported 79 ppm in December), and it seems fine. I'm not sure what the nitrate was when this picture was taken (probably lower) but phosphate was also over 1 ppm. He is (or recently was) considering organic carbon dosing to lower it, but not because things were dying).

https://www.reefs.com/blog/magazine...g-ix-test-kits-chasing-numbers-and-phosphate/

Your assertion would make it more toxic than nitrite to most inverts.

I do not doubt there may be some sensitive inverts that it would kill, but one cannot extrapolate from a 40 ppm nitrate reading and a dead organism to proof the nitrate did it.

 

[twilliard]

Above

What do you base that on?

Many fine reef tanks have nitrate close to 80 ppm. Richard Ross had that recently (he reported 79 ppm in December), and it seems fine. I'm not sure what the nitrate was when this picture was taken (probably lower) but phosphate was also over 1 ppm. He is (or recently was) considering organic carbon dosing to lower it, but not because things were dying).

https://www.reefs.com/blog/magazine...g-ix-test-kits-chasing-numbers-and-phosphate/

Your assertion would make it more toxic than nitrite to most inverts.

I do not doubt there may be some sensitive inverts that it would kill, but one cannot extrapolate from a 40 ppm nitrate reading and a dead organism to proof the nitrate did it.

Nice Randy!!

 

[Lenny_S]

What do you base that on?

Many fine reef tanks have nitrate close to 80 ppm. Richard Ross had that recently (he reported 79 ppm in December), and it seems fine. I'm not sure what the nitrate was when this picture was taken (probably lower) but phosphate was also over 1 ppm. He is (or recently was) considering organic carbon dosing to lower it, but not because things were dying).

https://www.reefs.com/blog/magazine...g-ix-test-kits-chasing-numbers-and-phosphate/

Your assertion would make it more toxic than nitrite to most inverts.

I do not doubt there may be some sensitive inverts that it would kill, but one cannot extrapolate from a 40 ppm nitrate reading and a dead organism to proof the nitrate did it.

I will admit, I'm not basing that on personal experience, only articles and literature I've read. But I did not say it was or would be proof of a cause, only that it could not be ruled out.
I would also add that is isn't likely that those successful tanks got to those levels of nitrate in a very short period of time like in this case. I imagine if it is slow enough the livestock potentially adjust. While a rapid increase ( or decrease for that matter) is more likely to stress and kill things.

 

[GatorGuys]

Without dosing straight up Nitrate, the Nitrate has to be coming from a different form within the Nitrogen cycle... for a spike that high and that quick - I suspect there also had to be a prior spike of Ammonia. To do that massive of a water change (90%) and have the nitrate return so quickly, I suspect that the source might still be in the tank - or is being added inadvertently...

Another possible way that much nitrate gets into the tank is if something was dumped into the tank... or a cleansing product used too close to the tank (I saw a tank crash when someone used glass cleanser (containing ammonia) on the front of the tank).

Either way, finding the source and removing it (dead fish, chemicals dumped into the tank, etc) and performing water changes to get the chemistry re-balanced would be my first steps.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I will admit, I'm not basing that on personal experience, only articles and literature I've read. But I did not say it was or would be proof of a cause, only that it could not be ruled out.
I would also add that is isn't likely that those successful tanks got to those levels of nitrate in a very short period of time like in this case. I imagine if it is slow enough the livestock potentially adjust. While a rapid increase ( or decrease for that matter) is more likely to stress and kill things.

That is certainly a possibility.

In this case, I'm still not sure what the levels are or we're in the past and how much they have really moved up and down to know if there was an unusually rapid rise.

 

[Lenny_S]

That is certainly a possibility.

In this case, I'm still not sure what the levels are or we're in the past and how much they have really moved up and down to know if there was an unusually rapid rise.

Yep, the timeline and measurements are a little hard to follow. But there was one post where he stated that after a WC with water from the LFS his reading was 0 nitrate, and in the same week it went up to 80 ppm. That sounds pretty fast to me.
I agree with GatorGuys, and stated it before. There's an excellent chance that something is dead and rotting in the tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yep, the timeline and measurements are a little hard to follow. But there was one post where he stated that after a WC with water from the LFS his reading was 0 nitrate, and in the same week it went up to 80 ppm. That sounds pretty fast to me.
I agree with GatorGuys, and stated it before. There's an excellent chance that something is dead and rotting in the tank.

Yes, that sounds fast, but the fact that a 30% change dropped it below 0.05 ppm and a 90% change dropped it to 0 makes me wonder which measurements were off, since, as you know, those can't all be right unless the value before the change was on the order of 1 ppm.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

he poisoned the tank and nuked all the microfauna.
probably kiled off a turbo or 2 too.

probably an accident.
Jus sayin
we all make em.

make sense?

 

[Lenny_S]

Yes, that sounds fast, but the fact that a 30% change dropped it below 0.05 ppm and a 90% change dropped it to 0 makes me wonder which measurements were off, since, as you know, those can't all be right unless the value before the change was on the order of 1 ppm.

Agreed, something is wrong with the measurements. Even a Hanna low range nitrate photometer only has a resolution of 0.1 ppm, and any instrument or test that could measure nitrate that low probably can't measure anywhere close to 80 ppm. At least I don't know of any.
That's why I asked earlier what he was using to test with. Things just aren't adding up.

 

[Damien]

A) He said it wasn't likely, which is different than saying you're flat-out wrong. If someone with decades of experience and an advanced education that relates specifically to the subject of water chemistry gently suggests that you're coming to an incorrect conclusion about water chemistry, swallow your pride for half a sec and listen to the dude. You'll be smarter for it. None of us regulars here would ever go toe-to-toe with Randy when it comes to water chemistry and there's a reason for that. He's a nice guy and you got off to a wrong start because you took his questions as some sort of disrespect, which is baffling to me. Trust me when I say this: you're going to get a lot of bad advice on this forum. Most people are just taking (educated) guesses about what's wrong with another person's tank, and offering the best they can come up with, and are frequently just plain wrong. Randy is not one of those people. Nobody is perfect, nobody is a god, captive reef chemistry is a relatively new science with no true experts, so I'm not going to sit here and say Randy is never wrong, but if I were a betting man and someone was betting that they were right and Randy was wrong, I'd bet on Randy 100% of the time.

B) You are potentially confusing correlation with causality. Inverts dying when nitrates are at 80 might not mean your inverts die when nitrates are at 80, it could easily be a coincidence. Happens all the time when you're balancing a tank. I added GFO to my tank to reduce phosphates and the polyps on my acros closed up. A logical conclusion would be that my acros do not like GFO and/or extremely low phosphates. But then I took the GFO out, my phosphates rose again, and several weeks later my acro polyps were still not extended. Then I noticed my nitrates were at zero instead of the 2 ppm that I assumed they were, since they've been consistently at 2 ppm for half a year, so I raised my nitrates back up to 2 ppm and started to get acro polyp extension again. The point is, my acro closed up when I added GFO, but the GFO is not why my acro closed up. It closed up because my nitrates dropped at the same time that I added GFO. As I already mentioned, your inverts are probably not dying because nitrates are high, rather your nitrates are high because your inverts are dying.

If you were a betting man this time you would lose. Why would anyone just make something up? I don't care who Randy is, who I watched my shrimp slowly die.

Like I said I'm a novice. I know about 5% of reefing, and that's from reading. @Randy Holmes-Farley could be right about everything he wrote. But 4 people that knows less than me told me my shrimp looks sick. When I started looking at it I watched my shrimp fall off a rock. It got back up but it stayed in the same spot. I even put my hand in the tank and touched it(it just stayed there).

When I woke up the next morning the shrimp was alive so I drove to the pet store to buy bottles of sea water, come back home to do a water change and it just died while doing the water change.

@Randy Holmes-Farley I know what I saw. Every number I gave were just estimations I did say, about. And I could of wrote everything wrong(I keep saying I'm a novice, I here for help, not to feel stupid. What if you came in my profession and I stupid youre a idiot for no know how the throw a jab? How would you feel? Learn to talk to people.)But anyway I saw what I saw and I told you all I did so unless you God you cant tell me I wrong. Since you're a chemist with a groupie and all the answers it must be something else going on, I would love to know.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm certainly not doubting that your creatures died and/or that your shrimp look sick. I never questioned that.

I can readily accept that elevated nitrate levels may make some inverts listless and not look right. That happens for most chemicals at levels well below where they cause death.

And while I still do not have a good understanding of what the nitrate levels were, they certainly may have been higher than people normally recommend. Remember too that test kits are frequently inaccurate (for many reasons) and some nitrate kits have issues (or at least have in the past, they change so often it is hard to say for any given kit). It does not mean you are stupid if you use a kit and get a wrong answer. Nearly every week there are test kit errors discussed in this forum that are causing folks stress.

So one important question is whether the nitrate is what did the killing, primarily because if you fix it and the tank still doesn't thrive, you'll still have a problem.

One thing to bear in mind is that there is an endless stream of folks who lose inverts for reasons they cannot identify (or have not yet identified). There are many reasons they can die, and many of them involve things you have not tested for. So having a high nitrate measurement at the time of death does not prove the nitrate killed them.

So the cause and effect of the nitrate and the deaths is an open question, IMO. In fact, I think it equally likely that the deaths contributed to the elevated nitrate rather than the nitrate causing the deaths, although both may be true.

So I will just repeat that it is possible that you lost some inverts to nitrate, but it isn't apparent to me that nitrate is the primary explanation.

So here are my suggestions...

1. If you think the nitrate level is rising fast, then there must be some big source(s) of ammonia in the tank from decaying foods, dead organisms, etc. That does not mean that ammonia is elevated, but it might be despite a measurement that suggests it is not (possible test kit errors again, or maybe it spiked and dropped again before you took a measurement, etc.). Ammonia is far, far more toxic than is nitrate, and there are clearly known bad effects of ammonia at levels below where it kills organisms. If the level has risen above 0.1 ppm, I generally suggest taking action.

So if nitrate continues to rise rapidly (say, more than 2 ppm per day), I'd consider treating the tank with something to reduce the toxicity of the ammonia, such as Seachem Prime or Amquel and see if it seems to have any apparent effect on organism appearance after a few days of treatment.

2. I'd look carefully for potential dead organisms and remove them. If it seems the live rock has dead organic tissue on it, that might require the rock to be removed and bleached or otherwise treated to remove this organic matter.

3. I'd make sure you are not overfeeding the tank.

4. Are you using tap water? Are there any metal parts in the system, or that are exposed to any thing entering the tank (like top off water)? The concern here is primarily copper but other metals can also cause the invert effects you are seeing. Running a Boyd Polyfilter or Seachem Cuprisorb or Two Little Fishies Metasorb might be a prudent action to take and won't hurt if metals are not the problem.

5. Continue water changes if nitrate is above about 10 ppm.

6. Relying on the LFS for water might not be best if you do not know how they are making it or how pure it is.

After these immediate actions, I'd look to long term nitrate control. There are many methods, including growing macroalgae, organic carbon dosing, denitrators of various sorts, replacing the canister filter, etc.

And a few questions to try to understand better...

1. Are there any inverts thriving in the tank?
2. Were they all obtained from the same source?
3. How long has the tank been set up?
4. What kits are you using for nitrate and ammonia?

 

[GatorGuys]

If you really want to save what is left of your tank - and avoid other costly mistake in the future, I suggest you look at some of the suggestions and feedback you are getting. Many people (not just Randy) provided feedback - and so far, you are not paying attention to the meat of the conversation. None of the suggestions made by anyone who answered you were meant to be direct attacks against you - people just pointed out that there were things that don't add up. This makes it more difficult to troubleshoot.

Point 1 - your numbers do not add up. As pointed out, your numbers cannot physically change in the way you described. This means there could have been an error when testing (which makes it suspect if the nitrate is indeed as high - or potentially toxic as you describe) - or as you pointed out in your latest post, the numbers were 'estimation' and thus do not help us troubleshoot anyway. Everyone makes mistakes when testing, which is why it was pointed out that mathematically, something is off and it was suggested that you might run the test again. There is a significant difference between 0.10 ppm and 10 ppm much less 80 ppm... You will find in this hobby that you need to be very exact in order to provide the proper environment that is stable enough for these critters. Stability is the number one thing we are striving for!

Point 2 - In my experience, Nitrate is not the first culprit for what caused your crash. As mentioned there are a number of far more potent parts to the chemistry - or even biology that you have not looked at yet. Until you do acknowledge these other possibilities, you cannot rule them out.

Can you get a test kit for ammonia and run the test and provide the answer to us?
Also, there are a number of other questions that could help us determine other potential causes:
1) How long has the tank been set up?
2) Did it go through the full new-tank cycle to ensure the biological filtration was set up before critters were added?
3) What is your salinity level?
4) What is your temperature of the tank?
4) You added a new symptom with your last post, you mentioned that the critters appeared to be lethargic before they died... how long between noticing the change in behavior was it before they died?

Your last post brings in other potential reasons for the die-off, and we cannot limit ourselves to just one cause simply because it was the only one you may have tested for... remember, you are trying to create the correct chemistry, biology, lighting, wave-action, and symbiosis in order for these critters to flourish. There are lots of parts to it!

 

[Naiad]

Also don't take anything as a direct attack against you. Sometimes people go into detective mode and their responses may seem short or they may ask questions that seem like they are questioning your intelligence. That is not the case, they are just trying to get all the answers to as many variables as fast as possible so they can try and save as much of your system as possible. Having run a tank with nitrates near 100 [emoji33] . There I admitted it take me to reefer jail. I did not loose inverts in the manner you have. Until I accidentally got copper in the tank. Everyone here just wants to make sure all of possible variables are checked. Being new there may be some things you didn't realize could play a role. So far you have done everything right. You did waterchanges to try and improve what you knew was wrong and sought out help.

 

[Damien]

I'm certainly not doubting that your creatures died and/or that your shrimp look sick. I never questioned that.

I can readily accept that elevated nitrate levels may make some inverts listless and not look right. That happens for most chemicals at levels well below where they cause death.

And while I still do not have a good understanding of what the nitrate levels were, they certainly may have been higher than people normally recommend. Remember too that test kits are frequently inaccurate (for many reasons) and some nitrate kits have issues (or at least have in the past, they change so often it is hard to say for any given kit). It does not mean you are stupid if you use a kit and get a wrong answer. Nearly every week there are test kit errors discussed in this forum that are causing folks stress.

So one important question is whether the nitrate is what did the killing, primarily because if you fix it and the tank still doesn't thrive, you'll still have a problem.

One thing to bear in mind is that there is an endless stream of folks who lose inverts for reasons they cannot identify (or have not yet identified). There are many reasons they can die, and many of them involve things you have not tested for. So having a high nitrate measurement at the time of death does not prove the nitrate killed them.

So the cause and effect of the nitrate and the deaths is an open question, IMO. In fact, I think it equally likely that the deaths contributed to the elevated nitrate rather than the nitrate causing the deaths, although both may be true.

So I will just repeat that it is possible that you lost some inverts to nitrate, but it isn't apparent to me that nitrate is the primary explanation.

So here are my suggestions...

1. If you think the nitrate level is rising fast, then there must be some big source(s) of ammonia in the tank from decaying foods, dead organisms, etc. That does not mean that ammonia is elevated, but it might be despite a measurement that suggests it is not (possible test kit errors again, or maybe it spiked and dropped again before you took a measurement, etc.). Ammonia is far, far more toxic than is nitrate, and there are clearly known bad effects of ammonia at levels below where it kills organisms. If the level has risen above 0.1 ppm, I generally suggest taking action.

So if nitrate continues to rise rapidly (say, more than 2 ppm per day), I'd consider treating the tank with something to reduce the toxicity of the ammonia, such as Seachem Prime or Amquel and see if it seems to have any apparent effect on organism appearance after a few days of treatment.

2. I'd look carefully for potential dead organisms and remove them. If it seems the live rock has dead organic tissue on it, that might require the rock to be removed and bleached or otherwise treated to remove this organic matter.

3. I'd make sure you are not overfeeding the tank.

4. Are you using tap water? Are there any metal parts in the system, or that are exposed to any thing entering the tank (like top off water)? The concern here is primarily copper but other metals can also cause the invert effects you are seeing. Running a Boyd Polyfilter or Seachem Cuprisorb or Two Little Fishies Metasorb might be a prudent action to take and won't hurt if metals are not the problem.

5. Continue water changes if nitrate is above about 10 ppm.

6. Relying on the LFS for water might not be best if you do not know how they are making it or how pure it is.

After these immediate actions, I'd look to long term nitrate control. There are many methods, including growing macroalgae, organic carbon dosing, denitrators of various sorts, replacing the canister filter, etc.

And a few questions to try to understand better...

1. Are there any inverts thriving in the tank?
2. Were they all obtained from the same source?
3. How long has the tank been set up?
4. What kits are you using for nitrate and ammonia?

The reason why I said about I never gave you a direct number was because the color chart that they gave me does not give an accurate reading because the colors are all alike.

Yes I have two species of snails that still alive. One species completely died out. No of the inverts are in my tank. All my snails were from the same place and the shrimp was from a different location. My tank has been set up for 6 to 7 months counting the one month I waited for the tank to cycle. I believe that the kits I use is API.

I know for fact that I am not overfeeding them because I cut down to feed into two times a week because one of the I thought the nitrate was, I thought I was over feeding the livestock in my tank

 

[Oceansize]

Damien, now you're just putting words in Randy's mouth. He never said you were stupid or an idiot, and never implied as much. If someone says "I'm not sure I understand the question" and then asks you to clarify, and your immediate reaction is essentially "hey don't call me stupid!", hopefully you can see how that says more about you than them. "Learn how to talk to people" is advice you should perhaps consider taking yourself.

 

[kendavjac]

@Damien,
Please post the following so that we can help:

1. Current Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH test results. If you can it would be helpful to post a picture of the vials against the chart. If you have a log of past test results please include this also.
2. Picture of your tank
3. Temperature of your tank.
4. List of critters in the tank
5. How much you feed.
6. Any other issues such as algae problems
7. How long since you added any fish/shrimp/snails/crabs

Once you post this, we can start to help you.

David

 

[Damien]

Damien, now you're just putting words in Randy's mouth. He never said you were stupid or an idiot, and never implied as much. If someone says "I'm not sure I understand the question" and then asks you to clarify, and your immediate reaction is essentially "hey don't call me stupid!", hopefully you can see how that says more about you than them. "Learn how to talk to people" is advice you should perhaps consider taking yourself.

You should read everything. I didn't immediately react in the way that you said I did there were about 10 different post between @Randy Holmes-Farley and I before I respond to any of that. And I never said he said stupid or idiot.

Why I everyone on his side. Monitor are even messaging me privately. Randy was the one who thought I was upset at him. He said it clear in his 2nd response. I said I wasn't.

It's texting you can't ready emotions from it. There is no subliminal message in anything I wrote

 

[Damien]

@Damien,
Please post the following so that we can help:

1. Current Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH test results. If you can it would be helpful to post a picture of the vials against the chart. If you have a log of past test results please include this also.
2. Picture of your tank
3. Temperature of your tank.
4. List of critters in the tank
5. How much you feed.
6. Any other issues such as algae problems
7. How long since you added any fish/shrimp/snails/crabs

Once you post this, we can start to help you.

David

Thank you a lot David. But I'll find help some where else. Everyone is sending me messages and coming down on me for responding to @Randy Holmes-Farley disrespect. I didn't know he was god.