help with nitrates

[richie shepherd]

hello all ,,, im richie and im 8months new at this,,, recently i got 20lbs of live rock , i put it in next day my corals was acting funny like closed up, so i checked my water it all looked good except nitrate, ,,,,,,, anybody have any suggestions 4 days later and 20 percent water change there still the same,,, so i changed the filter in the sump and waiting till tomorro so if it doesnt change by morning any pointers by any of you veterans??????

[seapug]

exactly how high was the nitrate?

[richie shepherd]

30 to 40

[Flipper62]

Are you using a media ?

[sedor]

What happened was when you added 20 lbs of new LR to your tank, there was die off from the rock not being cured properly. This in essence causes a cycle in your tank. First your ammonia probably shot up for a bit, then that was converted to nitrites and now you are seeing the end result, nitrates.

My suggestion is to change around 10% of your water every day until those nitrates come down.

I crashed a whole tank doing the same thing, only a couple of my hardiest fish made it through. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

[magikfly]

Get some macro algae also