Nitrate levels through the roof. - Page 3

biecacka · 03/03/2016, 09:17 PM

Bent, what size tank do you have? Did you just start at 30ml of vinegar or did you slowly ramp up?

Corey

Bent · 03/03/2016, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by biecacka

Bent, what size tank do you have? Did you just start at 30ml of vinegar or did you slowly ramp up?

Corey

The water volume is about 100 gallons or so.

I started at 30mls. I figured since I'm doing daily 25% water changes to try to get the nitrates down that would put me round about the normal starting dose.

Is it still too much?

biecacka · 03/03/2016, 09:25 PM

In my opinion, yes. The process takes a bit, but you could probably eliminate the water changes. I did one over 2 months while dosing and seen no ill affects. Are you dosing vodka too?
Read this if you only wanna do vinegar....http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index....arine-aquarium

The thing is to ramp up and find a holding line to steady that number. This way you don't cross the threshold and get any cyano or other algae.

Corey

Bent · 03/03/2016, 09:28 PM

Right now I'm just using vinegar.

That is actually the very article I was using. Am I reading something incorrectly here?

Xxero · 03/03/2016, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bent

Right now I'm just using vinegar.

That is actually the very article I was using. Am I reading something incorrectly here?

If you go by the chart, you would begin with 3.2ml per day.

biecacka · 03/03/2016, 09:58 PM

^^^ that.

Corey

Bent · 03/03/2016, 10:02 PM

I was doing the 1000 gallon dose, not the 100 gallon.

Groan.

Xxero · 03/03/2016, 10:09 PM

Ben, I am curious though...how much have your nitrates dropped since you began the attack?

Bent · 03/03/2016, 10:11 PM

Still waiting on Amazon to drop off my salifert test, so I can't throw out any real numbers. But it's gone from bright kool-aid red, to light orange, so I guess it's well over half.

Xxero · 03/03/2016, 10:19 PM

Awesome! (Bright Kool-Aid red

)

Dr.Duff · 03/04/2016, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bent

A fake Doctor? What's that mean? Is that a jab of some kind? If so what did I ever do to you?

I've never eluded to being one.

Edit:
I do know a guy named Dr. duff speaking of doctors.

Edit 2:
I can only figure you are talking about the few times that I've said I know some stuff about people diseases. Considering I'm an RN who's worked in the ICU for the past 10+ years and about to finish up my FNP, I feel like I have at least a decent enough understanding of human patho to be able to make that claim.

Hello... I am new to the group. They call me Dr.Duff since I am a Duffy and my bands do lots of charity work for cancer, autism YMCA etc etc. I've been pretty busy with work and tanks and don't remember the post but I can assure you that I wasn't referring to you etc. (I'm not a drama internet kinda guy.

CStrickland · 03/04/2016, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bent

I was doing the 1000 gallon dose, not the 100 gallon.

Groan.

Ha! You skipped the first month!
I wouldn't worry too much. The downside of ramping up too fast is stripping nutrients from the water so severely that you upset the coral, or causing blooms of bacteria - either harmless whit chunks or cyano. But your corals already mad, and you've got cyano so...

That chart is well-known to be overly cautious. Idk if I were you whether I'd slow down or just plow ahead now that you're in it. Maybe post in the chem forum? Id prolly plow tbh

Bent · 03/04/2016, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr.Duff

Hello... I am new to the group. They call me Dr.Duff since I am a Duffy and my bands do lots of charity work for cancer, autism YMCA etc etc. I've been pretty busy with work and tanks and don't remember the post but I can assure you that I wasn't referring to you etc. (I'm not a drama internet kinda guy.

Eh don't worry about it. Depending on how tired I am I tend to get a little overly hostile for some reason.

Bent · 03/06/2016, 10:41 PM

Update.

I've kept doing daily water changes, up till yesterday. I decided to let it go for a day and see what happens to the nitrate levels.

Tonight they are registering zero on the API test. At least it looks yellow, still have yet to test with something reliable, but it's no longer orange or bright red. So whatever I'm doing is working.

Just to recap this thread and my interventions for all surfing in here looking for information.

2/25- noticed everything looking like death. Cyano growth out of control. A Otherwise healthy nem looked shrunken and bleached, euphyllia with no extension (especially torch), leather coral hadn't blown up in a while (I mistakenly attributed it to shedding), monti and birdsnest both were necrosing. I checked everything at this point except nitrates.

2/26- more decline, birds nest all but dead, only a rim left on the monti. Toadstool starting to get reproduction "holes", 'nem is a shadow of its former self.

2/27- cyano is vicious now, covering the chaeto ball, sliming the entire tank. Almost all corals are gone. Checked all parameters and discovered the nitrates are sky high. Immediately changed 50% of the water volume, siphoned the sand bed in both the refugium and the display tank. Shop vacced the sump, blew the rocks off and added some filter socks.

2/28- no change in testing results, API vial still looks like kool-aide. Posted here on RC. Did another 50% water change. Changed socks, blew rocks again, vaccummed all substrate again.

2/29- no change in API results. Started dosing vinegar at 30mls d/t misreading the guide. Kept up with water changes. Another 50% change.

2/30 - another 30mls of vinegar, another 50% water change.

3/1- another 30mls of vinegar, another 50% water change.

3/2 - nitrate results improving. Now we are down to "nuclear orange" and not "kool-aide red", kept dosing 30mls. Decreased water changes to 25%.

3/3 - nitrate levels rising back up, starting to turn red again, did another 25% water change and increased dose to 40mls.

3/4- water change 25%, dose 40mls vinegar. Nitrates back down to orange.

3/5- held water change, dose 40mls vinegar. Nitrates down further, light orange.

3/6- still no water change, dose 40mls vinegar. Nitrates are now Yellow!!

Now tomorrow night after work, I plan to recheck the nitrates. If they are still down I think I'm in the clear.

CStrickland · 03/06/2016, 10:58 PM

Yay!
How does your stock look? I wouldn't expect the birdsnest or monti to have responded much, but maybe the nem is fluffing up? And is the cyano backing off any?

Bent · 03/06/2016, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CStrickland

Yay!
How does your stock look? I wouldn't expect the birdsnest or monti to have responded much, but maybe the nem is fluffing up? And is the cyano backing off any?

The cyano seems to be receding, though it's hard to tell if my manual removal is more responsible.

The nem looks much better though not quite back to his former glory. All the euphyllia is improving but not fully extended yet.

Strangely, my worm brain was never even phased by all of this.

Happyschneider · 03/07/2016, 01:07 AM

If you are aver in the situation that you are well above the detection limit of your test kit, try diluting the tank water before testing.

For dilution I would use rodi water (as pure as possible). You can start with a 1:10 dilution (F. E. 1 ml tank water mixed with 9 ml of rodi, the bigger you choose these volumes the more accurate it will be). From that mixture, you take your 2ml or whatever your test needs. Then you multiply the result of the test by 10 (or whatever dilution factor you used).

Hopefully, this will help you testing if your measures have an effect even if the nitrate levels are still beyond detection limit.

Bent · 04/02/2016, 09:21 AM

I thought I'd update this with some weirdness.

So a while back the vinegar dosing seemed to be working. Then I had the display tank crack, I took it down and moved everyone to the refugium. Total water volume has now gone to about 50 or so gallons.

I was up to about 40 mils and everything seemed fine. I figured since the water volume decreased to about half, that I would leave the dose amount alone and watch for some bacterial blooms...

Well the weird thing is, that the very next day the nitrate levels in the system were off the charts again. I checked my pump and the level in the the jug and the pump is still working. So I've been slowly increasing the dose amount since the accident and I'm up to about 60mls a day. I'm hesitant to go over that on 50g of volume.

Today I checked and the nitrates are still off the charts.

Wth?

Edit:
I just thought of a reason. Could it be because the bacteria colonies in the display tank were destroyed since I removed it and they have to build up more in other areas to make up the difference?

xcvnhvj · 04/02/2016, 11:29 AM

Tagging along this thread. Very interesting info from the group to learn more about and trouble shooting ideas.

cambo123 · 04/02/2016, 05:32 PM

This is probably not it, but, I remember reading somewhere that trace nitrite can cause a huge false positive on nitrate.

splix · 04/03/2016, 08:03 AM

I was sort of in the same situation, but not as drastic. My nitrates were always 1 or less. I had a tank emergency and had to swap tank and etc. New tank in, never cycled due to doing the entire transfer in a day with all the LR still wet. Due to something during the transfer, my nitrates went up to around 10 or so. Po4 stayed low which is good, but still in an SPS tank, nitrates at 10 is horrible.
I started vinegar dosing and that started to lower them but I didnt want to have to sit there and manually dose every day.
1st thing that really helped was I went and upgraded my refugium light to something that I knew worked. 6500k LED bulb and clamp light. Now my chaeto was growing like a weed, good!
2nd thing that really helped was the addition of biopellets in a phosban 150 reactor. Once those kicked in my nitrates started dropping dramatically.
Keep in mind, all of this is without having to manually dose anything.

Not even a month later, today my nitrates are around 1, and probably still slowly getting lower. Biopellets work.

03/03/2016, 09:28 PM	#54
Bent I got nothin' Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: The anals Posts: 6,420	Right now I'm just using vinegar. That is actually the very article I was using. Am I reading something incorrectly here? __________________ Quitters never lose. [QUOTE=CStrickland]Who gets mad at a starfish?[/QUOTE] Current Tank Info: 75g DT, 30G refugium, 10g chaeto tank, 50g stock tank basement sump

03/03/2016, 10:02 PM	#57
Bent I got nothin' Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: The anals Posts: 6,420	I was doing the 1000 gallon dose, not the 100 gallon. Groan. __________________ Quitters never lose. [QUOTE=CStrickland]Who gets mad at a starfish?[/QUOTE] Current Tank Info: 75g DT, 30G refugium, 10g chaeto tank, 50g stock tank basement sump

03/03/2016, 10:09 PM	#58
Xxero Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Oklahoma City Posts: 1,054	Ben, I am curious though...how much have your nitrates dropped since you began the attack? __________________ "You Can Lead A Gift Horse To Water... But You Can't Make Him Look In Your Mouth." Current Tank Info: 65g Mixed Reef Display - 15g Macro Algae/Refugium - 40b Sump

03/03/2016, 10:11 PM	#59
Bent I got nothin' Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: The anals Posts: 6,420	Still waiting on Amazon to drop off my salifert test, so I can't throw out any real numbers. But it's gone from bright kool-aid red, to light orange, so I guess it's well over half. __________________ Quitters never lose. [QUOTE=CStrickland]Who gets mad at a starfish?[/QUOTE] Current Tank Info: 75g DT, 30G refugium, 10g chaeto tank, 50g stock tank basement sump

03/03/2016, 10:19 PM	#60
Xxero Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Oklahoma City Posts: 1,054	Awesome! (Bright Kool-Aid red ) __________________ "You Can Lead A Gift Horse To Water... But You Can't Make Him Look In Your Mouth." Current Tank Info: 65g Mixed Reef Display - 15g Macro Algae/Refugium - 40b Sump

03/03/2016, 09:17 PM	#51
biecacka Registered Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Columbus Ohio Posts: 6,361	Bent, what size tank do you have? Did you just start at 30ml of vinegar or did you slowly ramp up? Corey

03/03/2016, 09:25 PM	#53
biecacka Registered Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Columbus Ohio Posts: 6,361	In my opinion, yes. The process takes a bit, but you could probably eliminate the water changes. I did one over 2 months while dosing and seen no ill affects. Are you dosing vodka too? Read this if you only wanna do vinegar....http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index....arine-aquarium The thing is to ramp up and find a holding line to steady that number. This way you don't cross the threshold and get any cyano or other algae. Corey

03/03/2016, 09:58 PM	#56
biecacka Registered Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Columbus Ohio Posts: 6,361	^^^ that. Corey

03/06/2016, 10:41 PM	#64
Bent I got nothin' Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: The anals Posts: 6,420	Update. I've kept doing daily water changes, up till yesterday. I decided to let it go for a day and see what happens to the nitrate levels. Tonight they are registering zero on the API test. At least it looks yellow, still have yet to test with something reliable, but it's no longer orange or bright red. So whatever I'm doing is working. Just to recap this thread and my interventions for all surfing in here looking for information. 2/25- noticed everything looking like death. Cyano growth out of control. A Otherwise healthy nem looked shrunken and bleached, euphyllia with no extension (especially torch), leather coral hadn't blown up in a while (I mistakenly attributed it to shedding), monti and birdsnest both were necrosing. I checked everything at this point except nitrates. 2/26- more decline, birds nest all but dead, only a rim left on the monti. Toadstool starting to get reproduction "holes", 'nem is a shadow of its former self. 2/27- cyano is vicious now, covering the chaeto ball, sliming the entire tank. Almost all corals are gone. Checked all parameters and discovered the nitrates are sky high. Immediately changed 50% of the water volume, siphoned the sand bed in both the refugium and the display tank. Shop vacced the sump, blew the rocks off and added some filter socks. 2/28- no change in testing results, API vial still looks like kool-aide. Posted here on RC. Did another 50% water change. Changed socks, blew rocks again, vaccummed all substrate again. 2/29- no change in API results. Started dosing vinegar at 30mls d/t misreading the guide. Kept up with water changes. Another 50% change. 2/30 - another 30mls of vinegar, another 50% water change. 3/1- another 30mls of vinegar, another 50% water change. 3/2 - nitrate results improving. Now we are down to "nuclear orange" and not "kool-aide red", kept dosing 30mls. Decreased water changes to 25%. 3/3 - nitrate levels rising back up, starting to turn red again, did another 25% water change and increased dose to 40mls. 3/4- water change 25%, dose 40mls vinegar. Nitrates back down to orange. 3/5- held water change, dose 40mls vinegar. Nitrates down further, light orange. 3/6- still no water change, dose 40mls vinegar. Nitrates are now Yellow!! Now tomorrow night after work, I plan to recheck the nitrates. If they are still down I think I'm in the clear. __________________ Quitters never lose. [QUOTE=CStrickland]Who gets mad at a starfish?[/QUOTE] Current Tank Info: 75g DT, 30G refugium, 10g chaeto tank, 50g stock tank basement sump

03/06/2016, 10:58 PM	#65
CStrickland Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: New England, U.S. Posts: 4,595	Yay! How does your stock look? I wouldn't expect the birdsnest or monti to have responded much, but maybe the nem is fluffing up? And is the cyano backing off any? __________________ If you're havin tank problems I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but a fish ain't one Current Tank Info: 3/2016 upgrade to 120g. Chalk bass, melanurus, firefish, starry blenny, canary blenny, lyretail anthias, engineer gobys, kole tang. Softies / LPS / NPS. <3 noob4life <3

03/07/2016, 01:07 AM	#67
Happyschneider Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Basel, Switzerland Posts: 350	If you are aver in the situation that you are well above the detection limit of your test kit, try diluting the tank water before testing. For dilution I would use rodi water (as pure as possible). You can start with a 1:10 dilution (F. E. 1 ml tank water mixed with 9 ml of rodi, the bigger you choose these volumes the more accurate it will be). From that mixture, you take your 2ml or whatever your test needs. Then you multiply the result of the test by 10 (or whatever dilution factor you used). Hopefully, this will help you testing if your measures have an effect even if the nitrate levels are still beyond detection limit. __________________ My build thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2517452 180 liter, sumpless reef, no skimmer for the moment. Current Tank Info: Juwel VISION 180, currently only invertebrates, planning to have low bioload as I have no skimmer and no refugium for the moment.

04/02/2016, 09:21 AM	#68
Bent I got nothin' Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: The anals Posts: 6,420	I thought I'd update this with some weirdness. So a while back the vinegar dosing seemed to be working. Then I had the display tank crack, I took it down and moved everyone to the refugium. Total water volume has now gone to about 50 or so gallons. I was up to about 40 mils and everything seemed fine. I figured since the water volume decreased to about half, that I would leave the dose amount alone and watch for some bacterial blooms... Well the weird thing is, that the very next day the nitrate levels in the system were off the charts again. I checked my pump and the level in the the jug and the pump is still working. So I've been slowly increasing the dose amount since the accident and I'm up to about 60mls a day. I'm hesitant to go over that on 50g of volume. Today I checked and the nitrates are still off the charts. Wth? Edit: I just thought of a reason. Could it be because the bacteria colonies in the display tank were destroyed since I removed it and they have to build up more in other areas to make up the difference? __________________ Quitters never lose. [QUOTE=CStrickland]Who gets mad at a starfish?[/QUOTE] Current Tank Info: 75g DT, 30G refugium, 10g chaeto tank, 50g stock tank basement sump

04/02/2016, 11:29 AM	#69
xcvnhvj Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2016 Posts: 4	Tagging along this thread. Very interesting info from the group to learn more about and trouble shooting ideas.

04/02/2016, 05:32 PM	#70
cambo123 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 337	This is probably not it, but, I remember reading somewhere that trace nitrite can cause a huge false positive on nitrate.

04/03/2016, 08:03 AM	#71
splix Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2015 Location: Indiana Posts: 374	I was sort of in the same situation, but not as drastic. My nitrates were always 1 or less. I had a tank emergency and had to swap tank and etc. New tank in, never cycled due to doing the entire transfer in a day with all the LR still wet. Due to something during the transfer, my nitrates went up to around 10 or so. Po4 stayed low which is good, but still in an SPS tank, nitrates at 10 is horrible. I started vinegar dosing and that started to lower them but I didnt want to have to sit there and manually dose every day. 1st thing that really helped was I went and upgraded my refugium light to something that I knew worked. 6500k LED bulb and clamp light. Now my chaeto was growing like a weed, good! 2nd thing that really helped was the addition of biopellets in a phosban 150 reactor. Once those kicked in my nitrates started dropping dramatically. Keep in mind, all of this is without having to manually dose anything. Not even a month later, today my nitrates are around 1, and probably still slowly getting lower. Biopellets work.