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Old 08-28-2016, 06:36 PM
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Craigdillman Craigdillman is offline
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This is totally normal ,

the carbon dosing that you slowly built up over the period of time built up the extra bacteria that was handling your nitrates semi- effectively as they were still 10 which is high, now all of a sudden you stop dosing the carbon and all that "extra" bacteria goes away. Since you changed nothing else no extra WC or less feedings or more skimming, Your tank goes back to high Nitrates cause the carbon dosing was the "fix" for it or "bandaid" if u will.. Nothing wrong with that lots of tanks (mine included) only are successful cause of healthy carbon doing on a daily basis ( Zeo tanks, Bio pellet, Vodka...) these things need to be tampered on and off slowly or this happens . Im guessing that your nitrates have always been a bit on the high side and when u started carbon dosing it dropped it down to 10-20 level but when u stopped it rebounded ..

2 things you can do to fix it

1) start carbon dosing again , vinegar/vodka is the easiest then to bio pellets then full zoo

2) Reduce input or Increase output ... feed less, skim more , WC more any combo of them to reduce the Nitrates


Tank should be good , i know when i was on holidays and my doser ran out of vinegar and i had 2 weeks left in the vacation , i came home to my nitrates in the 75ppm range when now that are less them .5 on the hanna now

Cheers man and good luck dont stress
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Current tank---125 gallon mixed reef 60 gallon sump, Reef octopus nw200 skimmer, Rapid LEDs, Maxspec gyre, Mp10s, Fuge, Biweekly 20% WC, QT everything
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