Help! Nitrates…

[Sdeluca10]

125 gallon tank
60 gallon sump
purple, hippo, sailfin, powder brown tangs
Also a foxface, firefish and a half dozen clowns.
Have a reef octopus protein skinner rated for 250 gallons.
After months of negligence, I was doing the bare minimum to keep the fish alive. Fish are all fat and happy.
I have anenomes that do “ok” but the coral “frags” I have are poor.
I used just the test strips and noticed nitrates as high as 200. holy cow, I know. I use RO water. Did water changes of 30 gallons and little to no effect.
I bought the Red Sea NO3-X stuff and tried that. Little to no effect.
I completely emptied the entire sump, even vacuumed it using a shop vac and getting rid of all the sediment that collected on the bottom. I replaced all the filter media. Here I am 3 days after the filter media and I’m still seeing excessively high nitrates.
Idk what to do. I need a good clean up crew but a good crew is going to suffer in such high nitrate water.
Changed filter pads, socks, increased protein skimmer output, changed filter in return pump. I’m getting discouraged. Idk what to do to get my nitrates down to a reasonable level.
I don’t have a dosing system/apex system, anything fancy. I’m trying to do my best on a budget if you know what I mean.
But right now I’m trying to do everything I can to get my tank back on track and I can’t seem to figure out HOW…

 

[MichaelJ]

Double check with a better test kit…..start there along with water changes.

 

[Sdeluca10]

Double check with a better test kit…..start there along with water changes.

I’ve done 3 in the last 3-4 week up 20-30 gallons per chance. Siphoning the sand and everything. I’m afraid to put my tank into a cycle all over again. I agree with needing better testing but these strips can’t be off by THAT much can they??

 

[MichaelJ]

I’ve done 3 in the last 3-4 week up 20-30 gallons per chance. Siphoning the sand and everything. I’m afraid to put my tank into a cycle all over again. I agree with needing better testing but these strips can’t be off by THAT much can they??

I wouldn’t trust them strips. My nitrates are around 90…. But my tank is low/softy….they like dirty water…..lol……only advice I can give is get another testing kit….not API. And do 10% water change a week.

 

[TPhan]

I’ve done 3 in the last 3-4 week up 20-30 gallons per chance. Siphoning the sand and everything. I’m afraid to put my tank into a cycle all over again. I agree with needing better testing but these strips can’t be off by THAT much can they??

Technically a 30% wc would reduce your nitrate by 60 but is also influence by your import and export. I have been experimenting with vodka dosing for the last 3 months, it has been working very well. I dose it manually with a syringe everyday, took about 10 seconds. Vodka is cheap, just dont buy the flavored kind.

 

[Mixed Reefer]

125 gallon tank
60 gallon sump
purple, hippo, sailfin, powder brown tangs
Also a foxface, firefish and a half dozen clowns.
Have a reef octopus protein skinner rated for 250 gallons.
After months of negligence, I was doing the bare minimum to keep the fish alive. Fish are all fat and happy.
I have anenomes that do “ok” but the coral “frags” I have are poor.
I used just the test strips and noticed nitrates as high as 200. holy cow, I know. I use RO water. Did water changes of 30 gallons and little to no effect.
I bought the Red Sea NO3-X stuff and tried that. Little to no effect.
I completely emptied the entire sump, even vacuumed it using a shop vac and getting rid of all the sediment that collected on the bottom. I replaced all the filter media. Here I am 3 days after the filter media and I’m still seeing excessively high nitrates.
Idk what to do. I need a good clean up crew but a good crew is going to suffer in such high nitrate water.
Changed filter pads, socks, increased protein skimmer output, changed filter in return pump. I’m getting discouraged. Idk what to do to get my nitrates down to a reasonable level.
I don’t have a dosing system/apex system, anything fancy. I’m trying to do my best on a budget if you know what I mean.
But right now I’m trying to do everything I can to get my tank back on track and I can’t seem to figure out HOW…

Nitrates were an issue for me also. I was freaking out when my tank was hitting nitrates of 90. It took me a long time to get that high so my advice to you will be that it’s going to take time to get them down. Changing things like all your filters and cleaning your sump is a sudden change. Be careful doing this. It will affect your system. Rinsing that media in tank water might be more beneficial in my opinion than just replacing it. Don’t forget about your denitrifying bacteria. You have a lot of dirty fish. So I would suggest carbon dosing. It’s worked for me but takes a while to see it work. The nopox works that you mentioned but cheaper to make your own. Ask a member they might have recipe. I use Luksusowa a potato vodka in my system. My nitrates are under 20 with a lot of tangs similar to yours. My tanks a 100 gallon. This vodka I use was recommended by REEF MOONSHINERS method. My system has not had a water change for over a 10 months now and everything is thriving. I also dose one BIODIGEST every two weeks if I remember. Other than that watch your import. Fish in the reef aren’t fat like both of our tanks lol. Maybe cut back a bit on feeding. The last point I have is your rock has absorbed this nitrate so it’s going to take time to remove it and get levels down. All those changes you mentioned should be part of your maintenance routine regularly. Not all at once. Log what your doing and purchase some better test kits. Good luck

 

[Duds]

Technically a 30% wc would reduce your nitrate by 60 but is also influence by your import and export. I have been experimenting with vodka dosing for the last 3 months, it has been working very well. I dose it manually with a syringe everyday, took about 10 seconds. Vodka is cheap, just dont buy the flavored kind.

I thought the flavor depends on where the fish are from?

 

[Chrisnnemo]

I’d say you’re heading in the right direction with 10% (20gl) water change every week. Your nitrates are only going to go down from here so anything that is still alive at this point is most probably going to make it. You just did a 30% when you vacuumed out your 60 gl sump which is perfect. Id definitely buy a good nitrate test kit though, for the piece of mind it’s worth it. Been researching them because mine all expired like 4 yrs ago. BRS put a bundle of tests kits together which took into consideration accuracy, consistency, ease of use and price point. It has the nyos nitrate kit in it fyi. Not sure what you’re feeding your fish, if it’s frozen I’d scoop out some tank water in a small cup and put frozen food in it. As soon as food is thawed I drain it in a small fish net over sink then put thawed food in tank. The water in the frozen cubes has skyrocketed my nitrates in the past lol before the test kits expired. I stopped putting that frozen fish food water in there years ago.

 

[Chris A.]

I assume your PO4 is bottomed out?
You will need to raise it to get the nitrate to start coming down.

 

[lieberrhl]

How about bright well microbacter7 and then skimmer?

 

[Mixed Reefer]

I assume your PO4 is bottomed out?
You will need to raise it to get the nitrate to start coming down.

Great point @Chris A. about PO4 if bottoms out you’ll need to bring it up. I experienced this first hand when carbon dosing

 

[TPhan]

I assume your PO4 is bottomed out?
You will need to raise it to get the nitrate to start coming down.

What is the relationship between no3 and po4? Do organisms always consume both at the same time? If either 1 is not present then organisms will stop processing both?

 

[Chris A.]

That’s the theory , so if one is way to high you’ll need to bring the other one up so they can be balanced out. I believe it’s around 16:1 but not exactly sure.

What is the relationship between no3 and po4? Do organisms always consume both at the same time? If either 1 is not present then organisms will stop processing both?

 

[Dave T]

16:1 comes from the Redfield ratio and it's a molar ratio, not the ratio of measured nitrate and phosphate. And it comes from the ocean. I think you'll find that most experts recommend a nitrate to phosphate ratio of 100:1 in a reef tank. So for nitrates of 200, you'd want phosphate of 2. But don't do that! You should definitely make sure your phosphate isn't bottomed out though, and bring it up some to help your biome be able to bring down nitrate. But as others have said, before you mess with anything you need to be sure your measurements are accurate! Hanna LR Nitrate and ULR Phosphorus are good checkers to use.