Nitrates

[Reeferdude1888]

Hi guys been dealing with high nitrates for quite a while now looking for some advice .

Levels .mag 1240
Calcium 480
Alkalinity 8.4
Salinity 1.025

Fish 1pair clowns
1 yellow tang
1 semi adult emperor angel

Feeding 1 cube frozen every second day and nori fed by hand daily. No waste all eatin by fish tank is bare bottom no detritus in tank or sump run Apf 600 skimmer it's working well and cheato in sump.

Now I run 1ltr of rowaphos in reactor so phosphate is 0.08 and nitrate is 50ppm all test kits are new they are Red Sea foundation pro ,and deltec for phosphate ,and Nyos for nitrate.

So I was thinking of taking rowaphos reactor of line to see if the levels between nitrate and phos maybe balance out more there are no hair algae
Or other algae issues I get a brown dust on rock sometimes that all.
Any help hear would be mutch appreciated and the tank is approx 8year old.

 

[Silent]

What are you lighting the cheato with? Is it growing fast? Maybe the lighting is not strong enough.

 

[W1ngz]

Water changes are your best solution to getting high nitrates under control quickly. Unless you have a large refugium, your chaeto will definitely help keep them in line, but it will take a while to get them in line.

 

[Reeferdude1888]

Hi guys just harvested cheato the other day it's fine and I am doing water changes and I use R o d I always have

 

[Mhart032]

how big is the tank? when i have a nitrate issue normally ill mix up 50 gallons of fresh saltwater, change out 25gals, wait 45 mins to an hour, then change the other 25gls, depending on the nitrate levels ill do this every 2 days till the nitrates are within a level the fuge can actually manage on its own.

 

[Reeferdude1888]

Hi tank plus sump approximately 100uk gallons

 

[Mhart032]

Hi tank plus sump approximately 100uk gallons

without using chems or carbon dosing, the water changes are the best option. im roughly the same size gals as you and i dropped them to 8 in just a couple water changes like that.

 

[Joshua Warne]

Hey brother,

What caused the nitrate increase? Your fish stock and feeding regiment wouldn't lead to 50+ nitrate in a 120 US gallon system.

What kind of corals do you keep?

Best,
Josh

 

[Reeferdude1888]

Well my thoughts are the same Joshua ,I was just thinking old tank syndrome possibly the rock leaching nitrates in to the system because it is an older tank ,but there's no proof to support rock leaching nitrates back into tank and the the only other thing I run in the sump is siporax about 6ltr stacked in egg crate and I don't think it leaches anything back into the tank either ,corals some monti frags ,style, green briarium, mushrooms and soft finger coral the corals all look fine i do run 15lb at a one inch layer of Eco system miracle mud in the sump .

 

[Thespammailaccount]

How old is the tank? What kind of rock did you use? Did you have to cure the rock?

 

[Reeferdude1888]

The tank is approximately 8years old the was live rock cured but I still let it cycle back when I initially got it .

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

Following I have a 1.5 year old tank same size as yours and nitrate threw the roof it never comes down. My next step is a denitrator

 

[Reeferdude1888]

Got nitrates down to 30 ppm but they ain't going any lower and phos is testing 0 so I'm going to take my phos reactor offline and get phos levels up to acceptable level and hope this may balance things out will test levels in a couple of days .

 

[Dan_P]

Hi guys been dealing with high nitrates for quite a while now looking for some advice .

Levels .mag 1240
Calcium 480
Alkalinity 8.4
Salinity 1.025

Fish 1pair clowns
1 yellow tang
1 semi adult emperor angel

Feeding 1 cube frozen every second day and nori fed by hand daily. No waste all eatin by fish tank is bare bottom no detritus in tank or sump run Apf 600 skimmer it's working well and cheato in sump.

Now I run 1ltr of rowaphos in reactor so phosphate is 0.08 and nitrate is 50ppm all test kits are new they are Red Sea foundation pro ,and deltec for phosphate ,and Nyos for nitrate.

So I was thinking of taking rowaphos reactor of line to see if the levels between nitrate and phos maybe balance out more there are no hair algae
Or other algae issues I get a brown dust on rock sometimes that all.
Any help hear would be mutch appreciated and the tank is approx 8year old.

You will need to dilute your tank water to obtain a more accurate value for NO3. With numbers this high, you will never detect an improvement. 50 ppm is pretty much off the chart. Dilute it so the reading is about 10 ppm, roughly in the middle to lower end of the range.

How long has the nitrate been high?

Have you owned the system eight years?

 

[Reeferdude1888]

Dan the nitrates have been high for quite some time and the tank has been running 8 years I've got the nitrates down to 30ppm and I have another twenty gallon ready to water change .

 

[Dan_P]

Dan the nitrates have been high for quite some time and the tank has been running 8 years I've got the nitrates down to 30ppm and I have another twenty gallon ready to water change .

You might try carbon dosing with vinegar, but you also might need to bump up PO4 level so the bacteria can grow and consume nitrate.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

For a sanity check I'd try another test kit like Salifert.

 

[Reeferdude1888]

I tried different test kits same result ,took phos reactor offline yesterday gonna let phos build up and see if this helps balance things out the only thing I can think of is the Eco miracle mud in the sump is possibly leaching nitrates but it's only 1 inch thick and I've used this in all my previous tanks and it's never been a problem and my cheato has stopped growing if nothing changes in a he next couple of days then I will just revert to water changes here is a pic of the brown dust on rock picture ain't that great

 

[Reeferdude1888]

Hi just an update on tank it's now 12 days since I took my rowaphos reactor offline and the tank looks like its balancing out the brown dust is gone from rocks the water is crystal clear and I can see the pink tone colour come back to my rock work all parameters are fine so gonna keep rowa reactor offline and let the scrubber kick in.

 

[mike550]

Hi just an update on tank it's now 12 days since I took my rowaphos reactor offline and the tank looks like its balancing out the brown dust is gone from rocks the water is crystal clear and I can see the pink tone colour come back to my rock work all parameters are fine so gonna keep rowa reactor offline and let the scrubber kick in.

Thanks for the update!

I’ve been following as I have higher nitrates than I’d like 20-ish but my phosphates are zero. Do you think letting your phosphates get back up is helping your nitrate level? What are you nitrate and phosphate levels now?