advice pls

[michelle jordaa]

hi.

i have been reef keeping for 5 yrs now. i just recently changed tanks and put all livestock across.

tank is 1,5m and all readings are perfect excpet nitrates reading 5-10 it freaking me out.

the question i have is i had a clown surgeon that died and i couldnt get him out and then my problems began i suppose another problem my reef octopus skimmer was not working for 2 weks and this caused more problems been doing regular water changes and all and it has dropped and the rises again

i have no sponges or bio balls etc. i have a refugium going and just wanna know where i could b going wrong.

 

[MikeS]

I would imagine that the move to a new tank has a lot to do with it...you probably have different flow characteristics, and parts of the live rock that were not exposed to flow maybe now are, and vice versa, areas of your LR that were exposed to flow may no longer be...a rise in nitrate is not uncommon at all when you move your tank, it's happened every time I've had to move my reef. Did your tank have any kind of substrate? did you move that as well?

As for controlling it....frequent water changes with RO/DI water, skimming, and carbon...it will come down with time...

MikeS

 

[mmkeeper]

Welcome to RF. Keep doing your water changes, test your replacement water to see if contains any nitrates.