Nitrates always high, could it be my rock?

[mta_morrow]

Many times the issue with not being able to reduce nitrates is a lack of phosphates. You must have both. To start, do you know where your phosphates are at? And for now, I see no reason to change or buy anything.

 

[virtual reality]

I would pull that first sponge out before the skimmer. That is trapping stuff the skimmer could pull out. The one before the pump I would keep... I would also add a clamp out of the back of your overflow to hold the black pipe on securely.

 

[LadyMac]

Many times the issue with not being able to reduce nitrates is a lack of phosphates. You must have both. To start, do you know where your phosphates are at? And for now, I see no reason to change or buy anything.

Phosphates were at zero.

I would pull that first sponge out before the skimmer. That is trapping stuff the skimmer could pull out. The one before the pump I would keep... I would also add a clamp out of the back of your overflow to hold the black pipe on securely.

I never thought about that, good idea. I figured since the way the white pipe was, that just sticking the hose on there would hold it well. It did, but in the future I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Would save a headache.

I no longer have this setup. I went to do maintenance on the sump, turned the return off. Pulled the return pipe up to release suction. Walked away for a few mins. MIL yelled about a flood. Turns out the return pipe slipped back down and somehow suction started again. Ruined the stand.

I won the Waterbox 70.2 a couple months back, so now things seem to be better. My test kits went out of date so I not longer have a way to test, until I can come up with the money. At the time though, there were no phosphates, and only high nitrates.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Have you tested for nitrite? A little nitrite will read as a lot of nitrate. If nitrite has not cycled to zero, it is not worth measuring nitrate.

 

[LadyMac]

Have you tested for nitrite? A little nitrite will read as a lot of nitrate. If nitrite has not cycled to zero, it is not worth measuring nitrate.

Yes, it and ammonia were zero. Though I only had an api kit for those. I did check the nitrate with the api kit and also, it read high. I’m not sure what the issue was.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’m not sure why nitrate seems so high, but rock doesn’t bind any nitrate itself.