Scraped Spirorbid worms, nitrate spike, now what

[Heidivee]

Newbie here, bought a cycled 30 gallon aquarium. Everything tested negative. Looking good. Yesterday I scraped off what I believe to be Spirorbid worms off of the back of my tank. I honestly thought it was salt build up but, whoops, nothing bad. They were unsightly with a black background. Today my nitrate is 20ppm. The only thing alive in the tank are two snails. Do I do a water change or can I just wait it out because the tank is empty. Got paid today and planned on getting two clownfish but it looks like that will be delayed. Wait, water change, treat with prime are the three things I can do. Input?

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

20 PPM is actually not THAT bad. Probably slightly on the higher side for most people's likings but your clown will most likely be fine. If you are worried, small water change is going to be fine but I wouldnt lose too much sleep at that level..but I would monitor and not let it go too much higher.

What is your Nitrate export method? Water Change? Refugium?

 

[Heidivee]

Thank you. Water changes. I'm about to swap out a couple of gallons to lower the specific gravity to 1.025 to match the fish store. The guy I got it from had it at 1.030.

 

[zuri]

Newbie here, bought a cycled 30 gallon aquarium. Everything tested negative. Looking good. Yesterday I scraped off what I believe to be Spirorbid worms off of the back of my tank. I honestly thought it was salt build up but, whoops, nothing bad. They were unsightly with a black background. Today my nitrate is 20ppm. The only thing alive in the tank are two snails. Do I do a water change or can I just wait it out because the tank is empty. Got paid today and planned on getting two clownfish but it looks like that will be delayed. Wait, water change, treat with prime are the three things I can do. Input?

20 nitrate, .3 phosphate is my happy place

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

20 PPM is actually not THAT bad. Probably slightly on the higher side for most people's likings but your clown will most likely be fine. If you are worried, small water change is going to be fine but I wouldnt lose too much sleep at that level..but I would monitor and not let it go too much higher.

What is your Nitrate export method? Water Change? Refugium?

Outstanding. Looks like you got this under control

By the way, welcome to the R2R community!!

 

[Heidivee]

Thanks for the welcome! I've read so many different things about nitrate. I'd prefer zero but I currently have a domino in a 10 gallon nano that I can't get stable, hence the 30 gallon one. That has high ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite but my domino is doing fine.