Nitrate Spike

[robert0762]

I need some info on where I should look for the nitrate that has all of a suden come into my system. I have a 72 gal tank with about 100 gal total vol. I have a 20 gal fuge with a dsb and a bunch of cheato. Aprox 80 pounds total of live rock. Two tomato clowns one domino damsel and one flame angle. A small blua acro ,torch coral,frogspawn, xnia,some shrooms and polyps a sally light foot serpent star and a small clean up crew. I feed the fish once daily with spectrum . I'm pretty sure i dont over feed if any food even makes it to the bottom the hermits fight till death for it. I might put a small amount of cyclop eze in once every week or two and i only do it the day before a water change. so on to the nitrates i noticed my acro turning brown two days ago. Also skimmer started to skim a lot. So as always i test my params before i do a weekly change of 15 gal and my nitrates are up to 20 ppm from undetectable for months and i am pretty sure it aint the test kit cause of the skimmer and acro turning . Ive taken a count of all fish and live stock big enough to affect my water everything is there. My sally did molt the other day too. i did notice that something was digging around in the fuge could this by y. just looking for some help here

 

[slim_jim989]

how long has your tank been running for? and how long has you rock been in there?

 

[returnofsid]

A couple of questions. You noticed something digging around in the fuge? What was digging? What do you have in there that would dig? Do you have a DSB in the fuge? If so, has the sand bed been established for a long time? It's possible, that with an established sand bed that gets disturbed, that some things could be released that were locked up under the sand bed.

Next, Are you using RO/DI water? If so, I'd check the nitrate level of your RO/DI water, though this might require a freshwater test kit...not sure. It could also be that your filters need to be replaced. If you are NOT using RO/DI water, it could be that your local water source has been contaminated. It's actually the time of year for nitrates to start showing up in tap water sources. Agricultural stuff can release nitrates into the soil, which take awhile to percolate through the soil and bedrock, before eventually making it into our water table.

 

[robert0762]

Tank has been u for almost a year if not.I dont use ro water. My fuge does have a deep bed . I dont know what was digging . it hasnt happened before but it is not a huge amount. maybe a 2 by 2 inch area that looks more like worms pushing dirt out and the other spot is maybe 1 by 1 inch where i think a crab dug it out under a rock that is the only thing other then pods and a couple of snails the is in there. The crab was a hitcher. I'm going to test the tap water right now and ill post the results

 

[robert0762]

I just ran a test on my tap water actually two tests and that is the source. when i first set the tank up i ran a test and the level was so low that i couldnt detect any . So now iguess i have to buy an ro unit wich sucks cause i bee
n laid off work for two weeks

 

[returnofsid]

Glad you got it figured out!! Tap water as a source can be very inconsistent. I would definitely look into purchasing an RO/DI unit. I've seen a few for sale, at great prices, on RF lately!! Until then, I'd consider purchasing water from a LFS or even a grocery store, although, sometimes it's hard to be sure of the quality.