50% water change and still 20ppm nitrates

[Milad]

Ok Im not sure whats going on here

Ive been doing a 10% water change everyday since Sunday and my nitrates are still 20ppm. This is getting ridiculous, ive almost went through a full bucket of salt. What could it be? I got algea growing on the glass everyday now.

I've stop feeding, ive stopped the zeovit extras i was putting in (zeozyme, cs, cv, sp, zeobak) and I cant get the nitrates down.

I have a pellet reactor coming but im not sure when its going to get in.

[intarsiabox]

Dead animal hidden in the rock work maybe?

[Bloodasp]

Try getting a new test kit, the one you have might have gone bad, old or contaminated.

[paddyob]

Try getting a new test kit, the one you have might have gone bad, old or contaminated.

I agree. I had an issue similar once with a calcium test kit. Was always getting results 700-800 instead of anywhere close to 440. I changed test kit and results were terrific.

I would try this before trying more water changes.

[Milad]

well im sure its high nitrates since the algea is going crazy on the glass
also oil slick on the top of the water

the test kit also reads no nitrates on the water that im using to change with.

Only dead animal i see is a halloween crab i bought the other day, seem to have died quickly, just saw his legs laying around.

[o.c.d.]

Have you recently used any Gfo if so was it more than you usually put in?

[Milad]

no GFO, actually I removed both bags of rowphos when i started zeoviting. 500ml total.

[o.c.d.]

I ask because when you remove po4 quickly out of the tank the bacteria feeding on it will die then cause a spike in nitrate. Even large waterchanges to me are not a good idea. slower is better.
Now zeobak isn't that the food source for the bacteria that live on the zeolite? If so by stopping dosing you quickly removed the food source maybe causing the same effect.

[reefwars]

Get your fuge running you said you were having a hard time keeping any Macro alive did you find out why?? Have you tried chaeto????

[Milad]

already tried that red algea and cheato, no dice

[Milad]

zeobak is the bacteria not the food
anyone got some more ideas?

[Gooly001]

Hi Milad,

Are you using R.O. water?

Cheers

Paul

[reefwars]

the ideas are never ending thats the best part of this hobby lol so youve always checked your nitrates right there must have been a point where you noticed them going up was it some thing you did think hard anything you changed or added or did it creep up slowly maybe from food or something small over time????? where did you get your rock and how old is it?? i had a problem with very old rock and lowering my nitrates so i did the ol switch er oo :):)

[o.c.d.]

You said your sure it nitrate because of the algae growth. Frequent water changes should lower the nitrate if not your kit is probably bunk. Have you tested the po4? Cause it's the algae that is also making you mad right. So if you stopped using GFO your po4 may have started accumulating over what the zeo bacteria can handle consuming. Over time the po4 can accumulate then high enough it will precipitate and bind to the rock in solid form. Then slowly dissolves esp when the O2 drops, That then provides a perfect food source for algae, water change will do little for that situation. Also po4 in a solid form will not show up on a test kit. It then becomes a tedious process of removing the po4

[Milad]

yes im using RO water

No i didnt test nitrates all the time, i just tested after i saw the oil slick

i dont have a phosphate test kit so i havent tested it yet.

the rock i believe is decently old, i bought it from another reefer (mikeolsen) i believe he had it for several years.

this all started when the oil slick on the top of the tank showed up. The changes I did during the oil slick time was remove rowphos and start zeobak, coral snow, sponge power, zeo zyme, cv.

Then i stoped most of the zeo stuff and just did zeo zyme and cv and bak to try to get rid of some cayno (which is still there).

[o.c.d.]

Po4 is one of the triggers for cyno.

[Milad]

now that i think about it
this problem is familar

When i first setup the tank, i had the same symptoms, algea growing fast on the glass

I added rowphos and it stopped

I removed rowaphos recently and it started

So maybe Im doing this wrong, I should start zeozyme and zeobac again so the bacteria can eat away at the phosphates?

[naesco]

Milan I understand your tank is running for less than 5 month.
With respect, you need to have patience.

You need a skimmer,lighting, live rock and sand and di/ro water to replenish due to evaporation and a good test kit.

Stop using all of the additives any of the other equipment you are or are planning to use.

Feed substantially less than you are presently.

Do a weekly water change of 10% ensuring that the water has been throughly mixed 24 hours before adding it to your tank.

Keep your hands out of the water but remove the slick with a plate as discribed before daily.

Do not add any more animals to your tank.

Take a breather relax you will have a problem free tank if you take the patience to allow your tank to get there.

With confident test kit post all the parameters of your tank and let us go from there

[ottoman]

I think algae also feed on PO4. Better to test your PO4 as well as Nitrate. I don't use zeozyme or zeobak, but I dose cv and snow. Use only 1/4 or 1/3 as noted on the bottle. When I first started cv and snow, I followed the instructions on the bottle, I have algae problem.

[ottoman]

[QUOTE=naesco;549350]Milan I understand your tank is running for less than 5 month.
With respect, you need to have patience.

++1.....if your tank is only 5 month, I think it is not fully cycled yet. Fish may be okay, but not even hardy corals. I remebered I lost a few corals when I first started saltwater years ago. Be patience. Check your flows, keep skimmer running 24/7, it helps cycling.

[reefwars]

im running euroreef 250 clone

the food is on two feeders at different sides of the tank feeding a little pellets 4 times a day.

my return and my power heads are all on one side of the tank. You think I should run the return on the other side of the tank?



quote:


i feed pellets 4 times a day on a schedule
i try to feed once a day brine shrimp or mysis before they go to bed
I use to feed 1 5inx2in nori sheet once a day before all this pooping happened




how much of this have you changed?? how many fish are in your tank in total i browsed through your thread and i cant get a solid answer but i seen alot of tangs and clowns lol:):)

[Milad]

about 20 total fish, bunch of them are small with only 4-5 fish i would consider large (3"+)

I do 10% water changes weekly on the money

Salt is stirred for 1 week

Skimmer runs 24/7

Lights are on a timer

Autotop off is set with RO/DI water so the level is solid

Ive reduced feeding in the last week to almost nothing, enough that someone took a huge bite out of my xenia

I felt bad for the tangs so ive feed them a small piece of nori (1x5) last couple days.

I'm fine with not doing anything but this wasn't something that has been around this whole time, thats whats bugging me. All of a sudden all these things went wacko.

ill get a phosphate kit and test it out.

[reefwars]

keep up your routine and keep everything posted im sure sooner than later somethings gonna give and youll see a reduction, during the first year of my small reef tank i had everything from cyano to 40+ nitrates heat problems and algae on the glass like crazy i kept up with the steady routine and never really got to worried about things, funny how sometimes less is more now i dont do anything lol maybe wipe the glass now and then and feed:) my 110 was a different story after a year i am still battling problems (was sold yesterday)im like yourself i need an answer i hate not knowing...but in truth not all the answers are known and with a little time things even out:):)

[naesco]

Milad when the equilibrium gets out of wack by overstocking overfeeding adding unecessary additives the tank goes wacko. This is even more the case in small tanks.

It is a newbie problem that we as newbies all faced.

If your ph is too low or your phospate is too high and you reach for a magic exilar to solve it it may be solved short term but the problem remains.

Test your water and let us know and you can make slow adjustments and with water changes will get your tank perfect. You will see.

[Milad]

Milad when the equilibrium gets out of wack by overstocking overfeeding adding unecessary additives the tank goes wacko. This is even more the case in small tanks.

It is a newbie problem that we as newbies all faced.

If your ph is too low or your phospate is too high and you reach for a magic exilar to solve it it may be solved short term but the problem remains.

Test your water and let us know and you can make slow adjustments and with water changes will get your tank perfect. You will see.

naesco what im saying is If ive overfed, ive overfed since day 1. If i over stocked I overstocked since the first month. I basically did nothing and it showed up like this really really fast. Its not like I just started feeding 4 times a day the week all this algea started and I havent bought a fish except a small powder brown tang in the last few months.

i just feel i didnt do anything but remove the rowphos and start dosing a few zeovit products to help kill the cayno and boom, something happened. So its definitely one of the two things I did (I would think) because nothing else has really changed for a long time.

[fishytime]

again like Wayne said....."with respect".......20 fish in a 5 month old tank is the reason you have high nitrates.....your tank simply cant keep up with the rapid increase in bio-load and thus is in a constant state of trying to catch up.....

[reefwars]

which is also why you cant get rid of it with water changes as fast as your wanting ,like fishytime said your tank is constantly playing catch up and since your never really removing the problem they never go down,if it does more nitrates are produced faster than you can change them out:)

i would be iffy on having 20 fish in a fully established tank let alone one that hasnt made the 6 mth mark yet.size is a factor of your fish but between a big fish and a lil clown a lil clown still excretes lots of waste may not be as much but waste is waste and your system needs to adjust.thats why i use the rule of thumb of no more than one fish a month ,not that i would buy a fish every month lol because it gives your system a chance to even out and thats your goal is to get things stable, once stable you allow time to pass then you know youve reached "equilibrium" once youve reached that stage you can get another fish but your system has taken a change and now needs to stabilize again and find equilibrium.

personally untill a system establishes(up to a year sometimes more)you should stick with a low amount of fish.20 fish must be hard to feed without feeding the tank and i bet your getting alot of your nitrates there too:)



go slow milad buddy sit back and wait for your system to establish, youve already got alot of fish and the damage is done so keep up with your routine regular water changes light feedings stop adding stuff to your tank as its not needed (yet) and possibly think of getting rid of a few fish and buy some coral:) in time your going to have trouble with all those clowns, if they get along now fine but when maturity hits and territorys are getting established the fights are gonna break out and if theres alot of tension your going to end up with disease, and you dont want that.:):)

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

If there are no corals suffering, I wouldn't worry too much about the nitrate levels being at that level. Fish are not nearly as sensitive to 20ppm nitrates as say sps or some lps corals.

Is your tank mainly fish or is it a mixed reef setup?

[Milad]

If there are no corals suffering, I wouldn't worry too much about the nitrate levels being at that level. Fish are not nearly as sensitive to 20ppm nitrates as say sps or some lps corals.

Is your tank mainly fish or is it a mixed reef setup?


mixed reef

I haven't lost a coral or anemone yet. im not an expert but the corals seem to be doing fine, a kenya tree i put in a couple months ago is now triple the size, the zoas seem to be growing. my birdsnests are really growing.

Here is the fish list:

Purple tang
mimic tang
yellow tang
powder brown tang
foxface
6 line
yellow coris wrasse
cleaner wrasse
2 cinnimon clowns
2 true percs
2 black occ
2 maroon
2 bagaii cardinals
lawnmower blenny

inverts
cleaner shrimp
Porcelain shrimp
black brittle star
serpent star (which i have idea what happened to, havent seen this guy since i put him in around the time this stuff happened)
tuxedo urchin
black long spine urchin


im not planning on adding anymore fish (most likely will be removing 4 clowns), and I have a shipment of corals coming this weekend and I think I should be set for corals, fish, inverts.

[Ograx]

I think a big problem is going to be the stuff that is rotting in your rocks and not getting taken out of the system.

If you 've overfed which you stated that you have it takes a long time for all that food to completely decompose and be skimmed and filtered out of the system.

You say you're testing Nitrates at 20 which is after you take into account the nitrates the algae is using to grow.

My recommendation would be to get some rubbermaid bins and take out all rock and wash them off in one bin of saltwater to get all the crud out then leave them in some more bins full of saltwater.

After all rock has been removed siphon the water out of tank while removing all fish and creatures left into another rubbermaid bin.

While siphoning this water into the bins make sure you have some filter floss on end of hose to filter out crud in water.Once you remover all the water down to about 1" inch of the sand you should be good.
( If you remove all the water and vacuum sand you will kill alot of good sand dwellers that you don't wanna kill)

This should clear out almost all of the the rotting stuff you have in there that I believe is giving you these problems.

I have done this multiple times in my 125 6 foot tank and it has been very effective at getting rid of nitrates and phosphates and I have never lost a coral or fish.

The water that I washed the rocks off in by shaking them was nuclear green by the time I washed all the rocks.

I can almost guarantee that by what you've said your problem is rotting food and waste that is not getting taken out the system.It is being left to fully decompose and therefore polluting the tank slowly over a long period of time.

A less effective but easier way to help would be to blast out all your rocks with powerheads and a turkey baster then use some HOB filters with floss or spongers to filter out the stuff you blow out of rocks.After a day or so of use and your water is clear take off filters and garbage floss and rinse out sponges.

[steve fedyk]

Time is the best thing for reef tanks. I would keep going on with the redused feeding and keep up with the water changes. That should in time lower your nitrates and po4. It should take about 3-4 mounths to come around at the far end.
The tangs and fox face will pick at the algea.