Nitrates and Phosphates Raising After Large Water Change

[NewGuy8899]

Hello all,
I have a 20g tank with a HOB tidal 35 with activated carbon and bio media. Been up for 5 months now. 2 clowns, 1 Melanurus wrasse, lawnmower blenny, shrimp goby.

I need some advice on what could be going on with my tank and how I can control nutrients. Background everything was fine a couple weeks ago and I kind of added twice the recommended amount of API AlgaeFix cause of some hair algae/algae so I’ve been doing large water changes to remove it. Below will have what I have done and my parameters.
I think something has died I’m my tank or if it’s the algae die off that’s raising my nutrients because I can’t find anything that’s dead. I am having some coral die off though. Pulsating Xenia all melted away and I took it out before doing a large 13 g water change. I still have an acro that is basically dead or dying. My purple stylo is starting to lose its tissue after the 13g water change. All of my zoas haven’t been open for about a week or longer after adding the API AlgaeFix they closed up and like 5-10% of the polyps are wanting to open up.
I have been messing with the sand bed to try and find any dead clean up crew so I’m wondering if this is raising my nutrients.
Also, I found out that I wasn’t mixing my salt correctly, coral pro salt, and once I actually mixed it correctly I did a 5 gallon water change which killed my acros assuming from the alk spike and the api AlgaeFix.
11/16
Alk 8.3
Nitrate .1 ppm
Phosphate .009 ppm
11/19
added API AlgaeFix

11/21
Alk 8
Phosphate .049
Nitrate 7ppm
Mag 1200
5 gallon water change(correctly mixed salt)

11/24
S
Nitrate 5.6 ppm
didn’t test anything else cause I was being stupid

11/25
Salinity 1.025
Phosphate .055 ppm
Mag 1200
Nitrate 7.6 ppm
Alk 9.9
5 gallon water change

11/27
Salinity 1.025
Nitrate 6.7 ppm

11/28
13 gallon water change
Alk 10.9
Phosphate .009 ppm
Nitrate 3.1ppm
Calcium 370 ppm
Mag 1200 ppm
Salinity 1.025 ppm
Ph 8.4

11/29
Alk 10.9
Phosphate .098 ppm
Nitrate 5.3 ppm
Salinity 1.025 ppm
Calcium 390 ppm
Mag 1230 ppm

Should I continue to do 5 gallon every 2 days. To stay on top of the raising nutrients. Could algae die off cause a raise in phosphate that quick? Nitrate and phosphate tested with Hannah checkers and the rest with Salifert.
Added some pics of the tank
Thanks for the help.

 

[Stang67]

I think you actually may be doing more harm then good with all the water changes. I may be totally off base though. Stirring up the sandbed may have caused your spike but it really isn't that big of a deal from what I can tell. Nothing is at the levels where it will kill things. BTW Phosphates don't kill things it just slows down growth and your levels are ok. I would step back for a week or 2 and let things settle out. Stability over time is more important then a specific set of exact numbers. Tank still is a little newish even after 5 months so there is that as well.

 

[blaxsun]

First, stop messing around in the substrate (yes, this could be related to some of your issues). Second, your nitrates and phosphates aren't that bad. I would stick to a 10% water change every 1-2 weeks. Third, invest in a bottle or Red Sea Nopox to deal with any future spikes of nitrates and phosphates.

Nitrates up to 15ppm are fine for an established reef tank (phosphates up to 0.25). Ignore all this <1ppm nitrate and <0.005ppm phosphate garbage).

Your calcium and magnesium are also a little low, so you may want to slowly dose and bring this up. If you haven't already, I would also test your pH.

My reef tank ranges between 2-3ppm nitrates and 0.02-0.03ppm phosphates, but it's also been up to 12ppm nitrates and 0.5ppm phosphates and did perfectly fine.

 

[NewGuy8899]

First, stop messing around in the substrate (yes, this could be related to some of your issues). Second, your nitrates and phosphates aren't that bad. I would stick to a 10% water change every 1-2 weeks. Third, invest in a bottle or Red Sea Nopox to deal with any future spikes of nitrates and phosphates.

Nitrates up to 15ppm are fine for an established reef tank (phosphates up to 0.25). Ignore all this <1ppm nitrate and <0.005ppm phosphate garbage).

Your calcium and magnesium are also a little low, so you may want to slowly dose and bring this up. If you haven't already, I would also test your pH.

My reef tank ranges between 2-3ppm nitrates and 0.02-0.03ppm phosphates, but it's also been up to 12ppm nitrates and 0.5ppm phosphates and did perfectly fine.

I’ll look into that Nopox.
I’ve always had pH at 8. Yesterday after the large water change it was 8.4 I just tested it and it was at 8. Granted it is an api test but my pH has always been consistent 8 with the same test.

 

[blaxsun]

8 is fine - pretty common (mine ranges from 8.0-8.1j.

 

[PeterEde]

I just reacted to what I really should have expected in a new tank. Brown algae.

Numbers were heading in the right direction so I checked phosphate which I found to be at .3 on the NYOS so I put Seachem Phosguard in a bag and the numbers dropped over night. then I read phosphates although preferred at .1, .3 is not that bad.

 

[N.Sreefer]

Whats the tds of your rodi?

 

[NewGuy8899]

Whats the tds of your rodi?

I dont have a rodi unit but I get it from two local LFS’s and one has 2-3 and the other is 0

 

[Timfish]

I'll reiterate the above comments about too many wate rchanges. With all the death the system has been pretty disrupted and you're going to have algae cycles and nutrient issues as it tries to stabilaize. I'd run carbon and GFO but nothing else and stick to not more than 10% weekly water changes.

 

[Stang67]

I would also spend the $$ to get a rodi unit and tds meter. Both are not overly expensive (under 100) I started with the aquabuddy off chewy. I think you can find it on Amazon too. A tds pen isn't more then a few bucks as well. That way you have fresh clean h20 you know for sure the tds of. Get a cheap pump, 5g bucket and really small heater and your golden. Here I the unit 70 bucks free shipping.

AQUATIC LIFE RO Buddie Four Stage Osmosis System, 50-gal - Chewy.com

Buy Aquatic Life RO Buddie Four Stage Osmosis System, 50-gal at Chewy.com. FREE shipping and the BEST customer service!

www.chewy.com

 

[Spare time]

First, stop messing around in the substrate (yes, this could be related to some of your issues). Second, your nitrates and phosphates aren't that bad. I would stick to a 10% water change every 1-2 weeks. Third, invest in a bottle or Red Sea Nopox to deal with any future spikes of nitrates and phosphates.

Nitrates up to 15ppm are fine for an established reef tank (phosphates up to 0.25). Ignore all this <1ppm nitrate and <0.005ppm phosphate garbage).

Your calcium and magnesium are also a little low, so you may want to slowly dose and bring this up. If you haven't already, I would also test your pH.

My reef tank ranges between 2-3ppm nitrates and 0.02-0.03ppm phosphates, but it's also been up to 12ppm nitrates and 0.5ppm phosphates and did perfectly fine.

OP doesn't have a skimmer so nopox would be a bad idea

 

[bruno3047]

If you don’t clean your sandbed regularly, it becomes a reservoir of nitrogenous and phosphorus toxins. You probably released a lot of that crap when you were digging through it looking for something that maybe had died. What I’ve learned, painfully I might add, is that it’s important to keep your sand bed clean by cleaning it regularly. Forget the water changes. Use a gravel washing tube and clean your sand bed, siphoning out as much dirty water as you can and replacing it with a new water. Good luck.