High nitrates

[gowingsgo]

So I had to go out of town for work last week and had my wife taking care of the tank. Well I am not sure if see over feed or it was the fact that I was not there to clean the skimmer but when I got home I noticed my candy cane was not looking so hot every thing else is looking fine though. So I tested my water and noticed the nitrates were at about 20ppm not 0 like the week before I left. So my question is would a 10 gallon water change every day for a week. Should I do more or less? Should it be every other day. What would you do?
Tank is a 125 with 35 gallon sump/fuge.
I have never had this problem before. I can't say that I have ever seen my nitrates over 5ppm ever
Thanks for your help.

[fishchef]

Sounds odd if you've been at 0/5 all this time. 25% a week should help correct things, but there sounds like something else going on. Any dead fish or ones missing? How old is your test kit?

[Iceman9128]

I was using an expired nitrate test kit and showed a high reading but everything was doing well. I brought my water to my LFS for them to check and everything was OK.

[fishchef]

Cool. How about that Candy Cane?

[robs.mark]

20ppm is nothing to worry about, many reefers have nitrates at this level and more, certainly with lps. What are your nitrites, ammonia, phos, and pH and salinity at?

[gowingsgo]

Fishchef No dead fish. All are just fine. The candy cane does not look good at all. I have had it for 2 years so it is fairly big I don't know if that could be the problem. Could a coal dyeing give such a huge spike in nitrates? what would cause this to just up and die? No new lights, no new salt mix, no new anything but a few acon corals but they were QT and fresh dipped before adding them to main tank.
Iceman I don't how old my test kit is If I had to guess 3 yeas old so I would say that it my be passed its due date. But I did check it on two other tanks in my house and they showed up at zero so I would have to say that even if it is off a little bit it still showed different results on different tanks. Not that that means much
Robs.mark ammonia is zero phos I do not know, and pH 8.2 I think. The test kit I have for this is based off a color chart and the colors are very close but I keep my tank lights and fuge lights on different times and have fresh air pumped in my house every 24 hours so it stays very stable for me, and salinity 1.026 and I have an ATO that keeps it very stable as well. Temp is set up to stay about 79 to 80 and I have never seen my tank get over 81 or below 79. Calcium is at 435. So as far as I could tell my water is good except for my nitrates and I know that 20ppm is not supper high but I am some what anal about my tank and this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.
I do a 10 gallon water change every Sunday night but should I do more then that? also should I do one every day or every other day tell I get back down to 5ppm-zero. Would this be to much will this just cause stress on my fish and corals?
Thanks

[gowingsgo]

Bump

[elegance coral]

I think you're right to be concerned about nitrates that high. I would be too. Even if that's not THE problem it's a sign that something is wrong.

Most people would advise small water changes over a long period of time like you suggested in your first post. Usually that's a good rule of thumb, but when animals are dieing and parameter are off, more drastic measures may be called for. I know that if I'm in a factory and there's an ammonia leak, I'm going to beat a path to the nearest exit. I won't be casually strolling to a better environment. If that was my tank I would do the largest water change I possibly could.

[gowingsgo]

Elegance
Thanks I am concerned.
What do you think would be too big of a water change at one time? 40 Gallons?
30 gallons? I did notice some junk on the bottom of the sump tank I am going to try and shop vac this out tonight as well as do a water change. what do you think
Thanks

[elegance coral]

People will disagree with me because they've been taught different, but if my animals were dieing and I had reason to believe it had something to do with the water they were in, I'd change 100% if I could. If that's not possible, I'd change as much as I could without leaving my corals out of water. If you insure that the temperature, salinity, and PH are the same and that the new water is well aerated you shouldn't have any problems.