OK, 3 agony posts re Nitrates: what to do?

[Sk8r]

I've fought this battle myself long and hard after an 8 day power outage---tank lived, but nitrates were off the chart. I learned a few things I'll pass on.

1. gunk matters. clean it out, and during water change is a good time: use your siphon hose. That way it doesn't get up in the water column.
2. water changes help. Yes. They do. If it's really bad, a 30% followed in two days by a 20%, two more days and another 20%.
3. be sure you have enough live rock. 2 lbs per gallon but it needs to be lacy, not solid.
4. if you use Prime, the stuff seems to affect the accuracy of the nitrate test, and they swear the change won't prevent bacteria from noshing down on the ex-nitrates, but---it's kind of crazy-making. And you do need those bacteria to do their job.
5. be sure you're not overfeeding or feeding too often.
6. NoPOX, a dose which must be done STRICTLY by the instructions, can make a serious dent in the nitrate. What it does is hype the numbers of bacteria---but here's the caution: it depends on a tolerably decent skimmer. If you don't have a skimmer, or you have a weak skimmer that never pulls anything much, NOPOX is not such a good idea, I strongly suspect. I have a middling good skimmer, and it went from pulling something like weak tea to pulling blackish green stuff and frothing up constantly. So it can help a weak skimmer, but you do need your skimmer to be removing the stuff.

Mostly due to the NoPoX my nitrate reading went from off the chart purple to faint pink blush on the test.

What doesn't like high nitrate? Most things, especially corals. Where do you want that test to be for corals? Faint pink blush. Not zero, but real, real low. Fish can survive high nitrate--I suspect, the way you can survive a smoke-filled kitchen, but you don't like to be there. Be kind. Clean it up. The wide ocean is always cleaning things out. Give the fishes a break.

[nvladik]

8 days with no power and tank lived? Holly molly, that's impressive Sk8r. Any losses at all or mostly everything lived?

[Bent]

The biggest Thing for me was detritus and carbon dosing. Filter socks too.

[CStrickland]

Good post, I would add 2 factors from my own experience.

1) patience. The denitrifying bacteria need time to populate, and they do it slower than the nitrate-makers. New tanks, especially ones that are not started with actual live rock, follow a pattern: first the ammonia gets cleared, then the nitrites, then the nitrates. That third step can be months behind the first two. That lag time is especially noticeable in tanks that are started with dry rock and bottled bacteria. I don't think biospira has any denitrifiers in it, so you get front-loaded on nitrate production and then have to wait until the denitrifiers build from zero.

2) hands-off. The only times I've had trouble with nitrates in a cycled tank is when I've had a fit and reaquascaped a perfectly fine tank because that one crooked rock was bugging me, or to catch a fish. Idk if that's because I kicked up a bunch of settled detritus, or the rearranging exposed denitrifying bacteria to oxygen, but it was a hassle to get back on track both times.

[heathlindner25]

What test kits are you talking about sk8r?

[fernalfer]

Yes what test kit are you using and i'm thinking about using NoPox i have done 5 0r 6 40 gallon water changes in the last 2 weeks and nitrates barely moved. My tank is empty so i'm confused as to why. But because my tank is a 120 these water changes aren't cheap and very time consuming for very little result.

Just wondering if it is ok to use NoPox on a new tank? Can you buy it at an LFS or does it need to be ordered? I have a Reef Octopus Classic 150INT hopefully that will be sufficient enough to use the NoPox. My nitrates are right around 60ppm

[heathlindner25]

Sounds like salifert?

[Sk8r]

I use Salifert.
Re NoPox, just f' gosh sakes a) decent skimmer, b) follow instructions meticulously c)test often enough to know what's going on.

[Sk8r]

re the 8 day powerout...I had no generator and though I could find one, I couldn't find one I could lift---120,000 people with no power, and supplies short, during winter, snow on the ground. I was able to hold tank temperature at 61.8 by curtaining living room with tank, and sleeping and living there. I'd go outside and fire up the barbie, heating bricks in an iron skillet that contributed to the ambient, as did candles and oil lamps, and every four hours, one of us got up on a ladder, dipped and poured gallon containers of water equal to the total tank volume. 102 gallon tank---100 pours (close enough). We managed to get half our fish through alive, all the corals, and of course the cycled bacteria. I used hydrogen peroxide a couple of times, and Prime on the 5th and 7th days. Lost all worms and such, but the crabs survived. Nitrate, as aforesaid, off the charts, because we had no way to remove the dead.

[mjstech]

Wow, well what are you plans going forward with backup generator?

[Sk8r]

Just not to get caught that way again. It's a portable, not huge, but it will support the tank. All you need to survive freezing conditions is an hour of power every 6-8 hours in a fairly insulated house; you can nip a little power to, say, make hot tea or coffee for yourself. I'll pass along one thing that really helped: we have heavy blackout curtains with a magnetic closing: they feel like rubber---got them mailorder, from JC Penney. They hang on the far side of drapes, same hooks, and they really make a difference as a barrier against sun in summer and a way to hold heat in winter. That rapid temperature exchange from a picture window is nasty when your power goes out. We had the world's largest candle collection---now gone; and we own more than one regular old-fashioned oil lamp. When you're in a winter blackout, you treasure heat sources, and the oil lamps do output a tiny smidge of heat. Late in the affair, we found a 'safe' hunter's stove, from Ace Hardware, that uses little propane bottles. You MUST keep a door slightly ajar because indoor stoves can kill you, and you shouldn't fall asleep with one going, but as the walls began to chill down (a house can retain a lot of heat for days) that helped a lot. So did the fact we were living in the room with sheets curtaining the hall doorways: living people exude a certain heat from their mere presence, and the sheets held the warmth in that one room.
Remember that chemistry including life and death run more slowly in cold, so the fact the tank was riding the borderline of 62 degrees (lethality) meant that the water was holding more oxygen longer, as I'd put it in, and that fish were breathing and using it more slowly. That alone helped preserve life in the tank. You mustn't shroud the tank: the gas exchange going at the surface is vital under these conditions.