I have done 20% water changes every other day on my tank and I can’t even make a dent in my nitrates. They are sitting at 20-40 and my corals are bleaching out like crazy. Anyone have ideas as to what it could be causing this?
What is your water source? Tap water or RO/DI water? When I first started I had the same problem. I was using tap water. Tested my tap water and the nitrates were crazy high.
we need a little more info, has this been an ongoing issue and if so for how long?
how long have you had your tank up?
What are you using for filtration how much liverock, do you have any reactors? filter socks, external filters?
are you using RODI to mix your water and do you test TDS?
what is your bio-load like?
are you dosing anything?
have you checked your new water for Nitrates?
Need more info . like how long has the tank been up. how much and fast have you added critters, fish and stuff. any die off?( with trates that high snails should drop off fast and add to the load.
and big question: Have you added any bacteria supplement?
BIO SPIRA would be a nice touch, to jump start the sand bed and filtration bacteria.
Like others said, need more info. That said, a 20% water change will only reduce your nitrates from 20 to 16. That’s within the margin of error for lost tests so you likely wouldn’t notice the change. Whatever your source of nutrients is it will likely replace the nutrients fairly quickly.
This is a pretty big tank if memory serves, right?
It’s been about a week of battling them.
Had a bigger Astraea snail die the other day but other than that everyone else is doing well.
I haven’t added anything in about three weeks.
I only use rodi water. Tds is measuring 1-2
I have two tangs,clowns, two smaller wrasse, some gobies and a snowflake eel.
250# live rock
350g tank with a trickle filter.
Marine pure spheres in the sump
Coralife skimmer
I was dosing the main reef supplements before my tank crashed
What is the alk and calc? How long has this tank been running? Trickle filter? Is the filter big enough for a 350g tank? Are you using bioballs?
Calc is measuring 480
Alk is at a nine on my kit
The filter came with the system when I bought it
I have four gallons of bio balls emerged
if you have no nitrite you may have enough filtration with the liverock, I would try turning the trickle into a fuge, the Coralife skimmer may be on the bottom end of what you need for that tank especially with an eel.
Sorry but looks like you have several more large water changes to do to get it down.
Remember how the Nitrogen cycle works, it’s often easy enough to get enough surface area which is what turns ammonia and nitrite into nitrate to get rid of nitrate it’s either water changes or a good balance of other both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, anaerobic is only going to be in larger pieces of liverock
Get rid of those bio balls, nothing but nitrate collectors
[quote=“houndsbayman, post:10, topic:8514”]
Get rid of those bio balls, nothing but nitrate collectors[/quote]
I didnt wanna be the 1 to say it
Is there something I should replace them with or should I find some cheato and get a fuge going?
I am using lava rock and alot of rubble rock. Lava rock is super porous and super cheap at lowes. I would replace the balls with that. And yes a fuge would help or build an algea scrubber
I would take half out wait a week and take the other half out and go without them for a few weeks while testing
you would do better replacing with a softball size of Liverock and fuge IMO
All bioballs, live rock, lava rock, ceramic media, etc. do is provide surface area for bacteria to convert waste into nitrate. They do nothing to take nitrates out of the tank.
Simmers take out nitrates indirectly by removing food/waste before if can break down into nitrate.
There are chemical and biological processes that can be used to lower nitrates; nitrate absorbing media, sulfur denitrifiers, growing algea (fuge or scrubber).
Water changes manage nitrates by diluting the concentration. Assuming your at 40ppm and doing 20% water changes your nitrate concentration will go down from 40 to 32, 26, 20 for 4 water changes. If you did 40% it would be 40, 24, 14, 9.
[quote=“bnelson, post:15, topic:8514”]
All bioballs, live rock, lava rock, ceramic media, etc. do is provide surface area for bacteria to convert waste into nitrate. They do nothing to take nitrates out of the tank.
Simmers take out nitrates indirectly by removing food/waste before if can break down into nitrate.
There are chemical and biological processes that can be used to lower nitrates; nitrate absorbing media, sulfur denitrifiers, growing algea (fuge or scrubber).
Water changes manage nitrates by diluting the concentration. Assuming your at 40ppm and doing 20% water changes your nitrate concentration will go down from 40 to 32, 26, 20 for 4 water changes. If you did 40% it would be 40, 24, 14, 9.[/quote]
+1 and I’ll add to that corals take up nitrates as well as a food source.
Not true anaerobic bacteria which is found on inside layers of larger liverock does process Nitrate to nitrogen which then outgases.
Oh I misread that first part about nitrates. The bacteria does consume nitrates. It converts it back into N2 via the denitrification process.
True, I forgot about anaerobic denitrification.
Ok so the 1 question i asked and wasnt answered. How old is this system? From the looks of it,it looks like the tank is pretty new? Has it cycled completly? How is the tds coming from your rodi? And to be clear it is an ro system with a dionizng media?