high nitrates....help

[GaD]

for a few months now, i have been bad with changing water & testing my tank. My corals were doing good as well as my fish, etc. i was only changing water once a month, but topping off every other day or so to maintain salinity. A couple months ago (2-3) I noticed my anemone has been shrinking, some zoo's disapeared, and got me to start testing again. my nitrates are above 200!! My amonia/trites are 0, ph is 8.0-8.4.

I have tried 50% water changes, i added seachem's purigen, feed fish just a bit, but still the numbers don't change for the nitrates. I have tried test kits from different brands and all test about the same. The water i use for changes tests great, as well as my topoff water.

please help!!

i know nitrates aren't as deadly as amonia/trites, but it seems to slowly poisoning my livestock/corals.

[TekCat]

200!!! wow, that is high. You must have lots of algea growing.... harvest it (just pull it out by hand).

Strange,... after 50% water change, your nitrates should have come down to 100ppm. Was that the case?

[Randall_James]

Substrate is likely leeching large amounts into the tank. Also rock will adsorb and release nitrates.

keep up on large water changes and perhaps vacuum a small section of the subtrate at each change. See how that goes

[serpentman]

That is really high. Some questions:

1.) Are you running a skimmer?
2.) Are you using RO/DI for salt mixes and top off? (If not, what are the nitrates like in your source water?)
3.) Are you running carbon?
4.) What size tank is this?
5.) What are the current tank inhabitants?

[jjmatti]

What kind of substarate are you using.. I had used Crushed coral for a little while when I first set up my tank,, Nitrate bed.
I ripped it out and put down a thin layer of sand and Nitrate went down ..

[GaD]

Skimmer, no i have the prism deluxe, haven;t used in quitel long time..

yes i'm using ro/di water for topoff, i buy the saltwater (due to fact im disabled & easier on my parents) all tests great.

carbon, no, just the purigen bag

tank size: 18g

inhabitants: 4 very small clowns, cleaner shrimp, snails, rbta

crushed coral substrate, when i first setup my tank 2+ years ago, i made the bed too shallow, its like 2.25"

when you mean vacuum, you mean actually remove sand & readd fresh livesand?

[Brenden]

CC is known to catch debris and raise NO3 levels. When removing water for WC you need to vaccum the substrate to get debris out of it. I would drop 2 of the clown and just keep a pair.

[GaD]

u mean like syphon the substrate like you would a freshwater tank? don't you risk releasing a nitrate pocket and poisoning the tank?

[Randall_James]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8538954#post8538954 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GaD
u mean like syphon the substrate like you would a freshwater tank? don't you risk releasing a nitrate pocket and poisoning the tank? Yes on vacuum No on poisoning , in an old DSB (5+ inches and year or older) you could find hydrogen sulfide but even that is pretty unusual. What you do lose is some life out of the substrate, however if the substrate is causing nitrate issues, that is the least of your problems.

As nitrate issues do not happen overnight, do not expect it to go away overnight. There are a number of fixes (more rock, remote deep sand bed, substrate replacement, rock replacement, more macro algae) but until you fix the source, they are all just band-aids.

Excessive bioload (to many fish) over feeding, lack of water changes, inadequate live rock are all part of the combination so it is hard for anyone to pinpoint your problem without pretty detailed info on your tank setup and your husbandry practices

However if you did a 50% water change with little change in the levels, that would lead me to think that
1. you have it leaching out of the substrate or rock or
2. You test kit is borked... have a LFS verify your readings before you get to excited

[cgjw2000]

CC is a problem... I would just change it... it worked for me.

[Randall_James]

I would concentrate on getting the CC out a bit at a time (10-15% at a time to keep from shocking that tank chemistry).

As you get sections moved out, you can then drop in fresh substrate of a more desirable grain size. No need for "live sand" as it will populate off the CC that is already in the tank.

You will end up with some CC when you are done with the process but not enough to get excited about. I have a long 3" plastic tube I use to add substrate into a running tank. I just poke it in down to the bottom and fill it with fresh substrate. I slowly raise it to allow the substrate to flow out the bottom. Some haze will cloud the water but it is not that bad.