Nitrates and comparing both my tanks. Lost , help!

Reef_a_holiks · Mar 5, 2015

Hey guys so here goes my issue. I have a 57 gallon reef medium stocked with fish, and medium to highly stocked with coral. Running sump, with dual filter socks, UV sterilizer and eshopps skimmer. tried growing cheato but does not want to grow no matter what I do. bi weekly, 15 gallon water changes. Tank is about 7 months old had zero issues till about 2 months ago. started to get some GHA and light red slime , very light though , no complete tank take over or anything of that sort. So after bumping up the cleaning crew, a few water changes and a chemiclean treatment tank is now algae free. After this is when signs of nitrates were discovered. I discovered nitrates in the 5-10ppm range. its been hell ever since no matter what I do the nitrates do no return back to zero, ive tried a bunch of water changes, I even did a huge 35 gallon water change and nothing, nitrates were at zero for about a day then returned. tried blowing off rocks, and sand and nothing. I know cheato will help but does not want to grow for me. So i am at a complete stop, do not know where to go from here. I do not know what caused the nitrates, nothing has changed since day one.

On the other hand, I have a 29 gallon biocube, with 2 big clowns, a condy anemone, mushrooms,xenias, etc. This tank gets water changes about once every 2 months, does not have any skimmer or filter floss, just cheato growing like crazy in the fuge and water is perfect. Zero nitrates, zero phosphates. I just could not understand how this tank has zero parameters compared to my 57 gallon which has better filtration and maintenance. Both tanks get fed the same , so its not something im feeding.

What you guys think ?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 5, 2015

In the first tank, are you measuring it exporting phosphate in any particular wY?

Reef_a_holiks · Mar 5, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
In the first tank, are you measuring it exporting phosphate in any particular wY?

By saying the first tank, do you mean my 57gallon? I do not understand what your asking.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 5, 2015

Yes. Are you using GFO in it, for example.

Reef_a_holiks · Mar 5, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Yes. Are you using GFO in it, for example.

Oh gotcha, no GFO. What im running is on the first post of the thread

Reefing Madness · Mar 6, 2015

In the 57g, the sump, when you were trying cheato, did it have the same kind of flow that your 29g tank has? You can't feed the 2 tanks the same, in the 29g all you have are clowns, so theres a big difference right there, if the big tank has medium stocking with fish, your already way over the bioload of the smaller tank.
You could get the cheato to grow, throw in a powerhead in the sump to kepp it rolling.
What type of light did you use?

Reef_a_holiks · Mar 6, 2015

Reefing Madness said:
In the 57g, the sump, when you were trying cheato, did it have the same kind of flow that your 29g tank has? You can't feed the 2 tanks the same, in the 29g all you have are clowns, so theres a big difference right there, if the big tank has medium stocking with fish, your already way over the bioload of the smaller tank.
You could get the cheato to grow, throw in a powerhead in the sump to kepp it rolling.
What type of light did you use?

The biocube had more fish and never signs of nitrates. it had a small yellow tang and a flame angel with the clowns. They were given to a local hobbyist as I saw the two being a little stressed from the small aquarium. So i am left with the clowns .

I just cannot grow cheato, I have tried puting a powerhead in the sump, had it tumbling and nothing. Ive tried different lights, everything from 5000k to 6500k CFL, to par38s full spectrum led and nothing. also tried dosing iodine and nothing as well