HELP! Nitrates

[michael81]

In the past week in a half i have done two major water changes one that was 20 gal of ro water and 15 gal of ro water i have a 55 gal and my nitrates are still at about 40 ppm, nitrites 0, ammonia 0, calcium 400ppm, salinity 1.022, alkinlinity 300, PH 8.3, temp 80.2 , i also have a canister filter but clean it weekly, and a octopus protien skimmer and 4 preety powerful powerheads, so what can i do to lower my nitrates, should i just coninuwe with the big water changes or start to do smaller changes.

[YE||0W TA|\|G]

Is this a new tank?

[jenglish]

Bigger WC do more for nitrates than smaller more frequent ones. You could feed less until you get them under control. HOnestly if its a reef I would consider getting rid of the canister.... or at least unhook it for a week and see what a difference it makes. You would be surprised how much detritus it can trap and break down ot nitrates in a week. You could also skim wetter. If none of these work you can look into carbon dosing, a denitrator or macro algae fuge

[BLKTANG]

How old is the tank,& what substrate do you have?

[michael81]

the tank has been running for about three years and i have about 30lbs of live rock and 40 lbs of live sand. What do you mean by skim wetter

[jenglish]

lower your cup height, raise water height or increase flow.... however you make your skimmer produce more but thinner skimmate. Wetter skimming removes more organics before they break down to nitrate. It won't pull nitrate that is already in the water, but will help from more being added when you feed

[mrkalel]

I must sound like a broken record... but just dose vodka...
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

[anoy1nce]

+1 Vodka, makes my skimmate look like coffee

[Michael]

hey mike how are you testing for the nitrates buddy?, and is anything in your tank suffering because of the 40 tested level you suggest it is? why are you panicing about this? has something happened? or are you just concerned because you see posts suggesting theres a problem with a reading this high?

[michael81]

Partly cause i see post saying they shouldnt be that high and i a bubble anemone died on me after a couple of months granted my tomato clown was pretty ruff with it but still it died then i added toadstool which is still alive but looks like a blob. I do have another toadstool that is doing well and another anemone that has been living in the tank for about 8 months and doing well. Trying not to micro manage the tank but its tuff when you see something not going well, also my corals dont seem to be getting any bigger. I ve done the test with the strips and with the liquid

[fishykid9212]

White sugar works the same as vodka, I use sugar and don't remember the last time I did a water change, everything tests zero

[michael81]

so how do you go about using sugar or vodka

[gooyferret]

Why dose sugar or vodka if you can do it more naturally, It seems the harm has been done with nitrates that high so just slowly bring them down with macro algae and other methods....

Are you over feeding your tank? What is your bio load on the tank like? What kind of substrate do you have?

I just cycled my tank and nitrates went from 10 to 5 in just a few days, it takes time in this hobby and patience is very important!

HTH

[michael81]

Thats kinda my thought on it im just going tokeep doing my water changes and do what i have been doing for the last three years have never had problems with the tank just started having them in the last couple of months. I was just curious about the vodka and sugar thing. Not over feeding trust me they eat everything, got a baby lion fish, a baby panther grouper which will be moved to another tank when they get bigger, a tomato clown and a couple of cardinals, damsels, and an enigineer goby, have live sand and crushed coral mixture for substrate, how do you cycle your tank or will it happen naturally or do you have to do it at all?

[ChknWing]

What type of lights do you have and what kind of anemone is the other one. You may have not had enough light for the nem, they do take about 6 months to slowly starve to death. Also if you aren't removing the toxins produced by different species of anemones then they will poisin each other chemically, you would have to use carbon to remove these.

[ChknWing]

Also remember that there are a million ways that work for different people out there. just because your way is not someone elses doesn't mean that yours is wrong. Basically if it has worked for 3 yrs keep doing it. If you do decide to change your habits then make sure you test long enough. The worst thing you can do is constantly change your mind on how you are doing things. The main thing to remember in this hobby is stability. You will almost never have "perfect" readings

[michael81]

i use carbon, and i feed the anemone, so i know he was eating, as far as the lights go i have 2 48" t5, yeah, thanks man sometimes i start to doubt myself when something goes wrong then i get on a forum and hear all kinds of things that it could be, but so far i havent changed anything just continuing to do my 10% water change every 2 weeks with ro water. It just seemed that everything happened at once, but i guess thats how it goes sometimes. thanks everyone for the help, my nitrates are about 20 now although it could be 25 hard to tell with the colors

[tkeracer619]

I would pull the canister filter off the tank and remove any filter sponges. Siphon any detritus and blow off the rocks with a turkey baster. Maybe do the 10% water change weekly for a while and turn the skimmer wetter. It will take some time but eventually they will lower.

Crushed coral is notorious for trapping detritus. If you stir up the sand bed how much crap floats off into the water column?

Have you verified your RO is working properly? What is the tds?

[michael81]

The RO water i get is from a local pet shop and the guy who runs it was an awesome reef tank so i cant imagine he would sell me bad water, maybe i will switch to all live sand, been running the skimmer wet for the last day or so

[gooyferret]

Live sand will definitly help do you have any macro alage in the sump? I would just do it as naturally as you can and if that dont do it over a couple months try something else...JMO

[socalchris]

i just posted this in another thread...

in my personal experience of a few years and now on my third reef tank, NONE of my tanks have reached 0 nitrates without the use of chaeto...macroalgae always got it done for me within a couple weeks...

[gooyferret]

socal what macro algae did you put in your sump or fuge?

[socalchris]

Originally posted by gooyferret
socal what macro algae did you put in your sump or fuge?

I've always used Chaeto. Once I had some Caulerpa mixed in too, but I don't think it's recommended and I believe it's illegal in many places.