I need help!!! Nitrate problem!

[boosted306]

I have a bad nitrate problem. I went to the LFS today and had everything tested just to see where everything was at. My parameters are as follows;

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40 to 60
Calcium - 300
Phosphate - unreadable, may or may not be showing anything
Salinity - 1.025


I did a 5 gallon water challenge last Monday and I am going to do a 7'ish now. I am going to dose with stability over the next week to see what happens. Any ideas that any of you guys and gals have are welcomed. I am stumped on what could be going on here. In this hobby I have never had a problem with parameters being off. I had a huge algae bloom and took care of that for the most part.

 

[Myteemouse]

More info!
stock list
size tank
feeding schedual and what you feed
any info you can think of
maintenance schedual

 

[jezzeaepi]

skimmer? sump? refugium? water change schedule?

 

[boosted306]

29 gallon tall all glass aquarium. Water changes are done weekly. I do 5 gallons every Sunday or Monday. I am currently on a Eheim canister filter that is now cleaned bi-weekly. I am going to a sump once I hear back from a member on here. Stock list is, diamond goby, 2 false percs, peppermint shrimp, emerald crab, 7 small hermits, and a snail that I didn't know was in there.

I have heard that canisters are a nitrate factory from several members on here but the canister filter stays very clean for the most part. I clean the top 2 filter pads on the top and then the carbon. I also clean or replace the blue filter pad in between the carbon and bio-stuff as well.

 

[returnofsid]

What's "Stability?" I wouldn't recommend dosing anything at all that you aren't testing for. The only things you should be dosing are:
Alk, Ca and Mg.

More information is needed but nitrates are only removed by water changes and skimming.

 

[boosted306]

I am not currently using the skimmer because I am trying to get my calcium up. Skimmer hasn't been on this tank at all actually because it is so large. The skimmer not the tank. It is the corallife recommended for a 125 gallon.

 

[boosted306]

http://www.aquahobby.com/products/e_stability.php

 

[boosted306]

I just wanted to test it for myself before I got to confused on what is going on. It turned yellow on my own kit but at the LFS it was an orange/red. Any ideas? Could their test kit be good/ bad and mine vise versa? I am confused.

 

[returnofsid]

Ummm what does using a skimmer have to do with raising your calcium? I wouldn't put much faith in "stability" at all. A coralife skimmer recommended for a 125 gallon tank is probably perfect for a tank no larger than 55-75 gallons. You need to get a skimmer running or you'll find yourself in lots of nitrate troubles. LARGE water changes and skimming are about the only effective ways of reducing nitrates, except for the use of a refugium with Macro Algae growing in it.

We still need much more information about your aquarium.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Agree with Sid. There is no substitute for time and patience and none of it can be found in a bottle. Skimmers do not remove calcium, they pull out what are called surfactants AKA pollutants. If you have enough rock and are carefully to not overfeed, your nitrate will come down gradually in time.

As they say, "chill out and find the groove"

(Who the heck says that???)

 

[Myteemouse]

Yep
I removed my canister filter and
chilled out on the feeding
and let the tank do it's thing!
My tank has never looked better!
I just add my supps, feed, clean glass everyother day and do a 15% water change (RO/DI) once a week !
you people taught me to "let it go and keep your hands dry"

 

[boosted306]

I feed a cube of Marine cuisine every week to every other. I do not let the fish eat longer than about 2 - 3 minutes. They are fat and happy so I have always assumed that was perfect.

How big of a sump should I be looking at, 15 gal?

 

[Krish]

Nitrates will take the longest to work off. :doubt: It took me about 5 months or so to work off just 7 or so ppm of nitrates and that's with a very small bioload (4 small fish in a 75gal), weekly water changes of 10-15%, 24/7 skimming etc. Good sized water changes using ro/di water will help dilute the nitrate issue some, but you will need to find the source of your excess nitrates. Are you running a sand bed? If so, what type?? (ie shallow sand bed or deep sand bed?) If shallow sand bed, do you vaccum the substrate when doing your water changes?? If not, that could be part of your problem as waste can easily get trapped in your sandbed and cause nitrate issues. I ended up tossing my sandbed for this same reason and going bare bottom. Helped quite a bit, but it is a look that takes some getting use to. Also, you mentioned your canister filter. Yes, they can cause issues like mentioned. The bio-material you have in it, I would get rid of. It will not provide anything extra for you that your liverock won't provide. Bi-weekly cleaning of it IMO is too long as well To keep waste buildup from working against you, you'd want to clean those pads every 2-3 days which can be a pain. This is the same reason I didn't put anything in my canister filter when I used one other than carbon because of the waste build up that resulted. Eventually, I tossed the canister filter itself and just hung a bag of carbon in my sump because of the waste that just accumilated in the canister. If you notice when cleaning your canister, a lot of waste will even just sit on the bottom of it which can cause issues. The main thing with any tank is you want to get rid of any waste before it can cause any issues for you and this is why people adopt different methods like skimming, frequent water changes (we have a member here that did a 100% water change on his tank every week!), good husbandry, good flow with proper placement to keep all waste and detritus in suspension to be either used up by corals or removed via skimmer or mechanical filter etc. and so forth.

With that said, what you are experiencing is normal and happens to almost everyone after setting up a new tank. Tanks need time to mature and during this time you will experience algae outbreaks from time to time. Your liverock will have to build up all of the necessary anaerobic bacteria to perform denitrification (process by which nitrates are converted to nitrogen gas) which un-fortunately can take some time so don't get too stumped as it should eventually pass. You could possibly try and manually remove some of the algae from your tank as in doing so, you will be exporting any bound-up excess nutrients.

 

[Myteemouse]

I moded a ten gallon glasstank and it fit perfect (tight) under my 29 gallon tank in my stand.
that will do great!
Heres a pic with it in the stand!

 

[Krish]

Also, I almost forgot, what helped me as well when trying to work off my nitrates was I setup my sump in a way that the "fuge" section of it was more suitable for algae to grow there rather than the tank itself. I ran more watts per gal of light there for a longer period of time each day and what happened was I had all of my algae that was a result of excess nitrates and phosphates growing in the sump rather than the main tank and every week, I'd just vaccum it all out. Sometimes it got so bad that I had to do it twice a week. The good thing about this though was while my tank was trying to stabilize, I didn't have to look at all that ugly algae growing in my tank on my rocks etc because it was growing in my sump. Eventually, when things balanced out, I was able to remove the light over the fuge section and algae never grew again in my tanks. If I have a picture of what my sump use to look like I'll post it here to give you an idea of what I use to deal with

 

[Myteemouse]

well said krish75
thanks, you just helped me too

 

[boosted306]

Thanks Krish, you're always a huge help. Actually all of you that post to help "youngsters" like myself are a huge help.

 

[Krish]

Can't seem to find the picture I was really looking for, but here are 3 other shots anyways. You can always setup your sump in a way to keep an algae like chaeto which can help a bit with nutrient export as your rock matures with the necessary beneficial bacteria.


This is where the algae would grow. You can see some of it starting to grow on the walls in this picture. Had a lot of cyno and green algae in there by the end of each week






Sometimes I used a H.O.T Magnum canister filter with a polishing cartridge to vaccum out the algae and detritus out of my sump and this is a new cartrige next to one after a cleaning and this is on a tank like I mentioned without much bio-load. Never overfed either







And this shot is what I siphoned up when going to do a water change one time. This is just what came out of the sump itself so you can imagine what can come out of your sandbed etc and this is just after one week

 

[Krish]

Thanks Krish, you're always a huge help. Actually all of you that post to help "youngsters" like myself are a huge help.

well said krish75
thanks, you just helped me too

Not a problem at all...Always willing to help where I can. I use to be a frustrated reefer myself

 

[Myteemouse]

GROSSSS
I hate it when I do water changes and
the buckets are so gross, full of nasties, "that was in my tank", poor fishies and corals!