please help fish sitter over fead my tank

[boots]

so to make a long story short ,i come back from my vacation thinking that I would probably be a little off in my water perameters. So the first thing i do is a water sample and all seems well untill I get to the nitrats and they are out of this world. So i did a healthy water change and one more three days later and they have not come down very much. is there anything that i should be doing or could be doing


thank you in addvance

boots:

[mike31154]

Welcome to Canreef.

Define out of this world with regard to your nitrate reading plse. Additional water changes are likely the best option and perhaps confirm the validity/accuracy of your test kit. Other than that, how's your livestock looking? If everything is still looking fairly healthy, don't sweat it too much and as mentioned, prepare for another water change or two.

Tell us a little more about your set up and some more experienced members will be able to offer more expert advice. Good luck and hope everything turns out ok.

[boots]

thanks mike!
i have a 90 gallon reef ready tank with a 33 gallon sump,delteck cal. reactor,protean skimmer,100 pounds of live rock,squair block anth. ,4 small anth,
scopa tang,bi-color blenny,eblyeye angle,pink spotted goby,lawnmore blenny,clown fish,rose tip annen. ,torch,frog spawn,zoes,a few soft lethers,tree coarl,rics,green star polips,blue matalic mushrooms.

everything is in awsome shape the only thing is that my polips don"t seem to want to open.all the other tests are bang on


thanks for the input

[Aquattro]

But what is the nitrate reading?

[boots]

from what i can tell it is around 50 ppm

[68shelby]

what brand of test kit are you using?

[Oxymoron]

Solution to pollution is dilution:)
Additional water changes should help your problem.

[boots]

the test kit that i am using is tetra
how often should i keep doing water changes (besides the regular once a week)
every 3 to 4 days or would that be to much or would that work at say 5% instead of 10%:question:

[68shelby]

read my posts I went thru the exact same problems I was going crazy doing water changes, that I didnt need to. Go and get a ELOS aqua test kit. On the eos kit my nitrates are at 5 ppm. an the hagen kit I had they wouldnt come down below 20ppm after back to back 50% changes.

[boots]

realy thanks i think i will give that a try towmorow:biggrin:

[68shelby]

Did you get a new test kit? And if so how did it go?

[intarsiabox]

When I go on holidays I pre-measure my daily food rations into an ice cube tray for my fish sitter. This way I can still control the amount of food given when I'm away and don't have to worry about over feeding.

I agree that a Tetra kit may not be the most reliable. Try testing a newly mixed batch of salt water and see if the Tetra kit reads close to zero for nitrates, if it is still showing 50ppm then you know your kit should be thrown out.

[boots]

i did get a new test kit and and had the same readings.:sad:
however with a few water changes they are slowly going down.:smile:
they are down to around 20 ppm now.


thanks all

[Sushiman]

Keep'er up mate. Welcome aboard!