Good evening everyone, I did my usual weekly test tonight and my nitrates seem to be especially high and I have some what looks to be a bit of gha and dino. Please take a look and tell me what you think or suggest. Rigt now im only running carbon in a bag and my radions at 30% from 12-10. Nothing's dead, I have a pair of clownfish, 1 long nose hawk fish, 1 cleaner shrimp, 3 trochus snails, and 2 tiger conch. My salinity is low, I'm working on bringing that up with my awc. Im also using vibrant once a week, shiuld I also start considering vodka? Thanks
High nitrates and uglies
- Thread starter Reefchef
- Start date
I run it a bit wet.
I'll do a large water change on my next day off, I have my awc doing 1.5 gallons per day right now. That is my biggest problem right now for sure, over feeding!
No, I have a small cuc right now. 2 conchs and 3 snails.
I'll do a large water change on my next day off, I have my awc doing 1.5 gallons per day right now. That is my biggest problem right now for sure, over feeding!
No, I have a small cuc right now. 2 conchs and 3 snails.
Rocks are very white which indicates this is a fairly immature tank, it is normal for nutrients to fluctuate as beneficial bacteria populate the environment. Dont dose anything, don't disturb the "uglies". Do you have coral in this tank?
I would get about 50-100 hermits and maybe 10 turbo snails, that may help with clean up from over feeding and overall
It's only about 3 months old, the nitrates had just never been that high. I only have 1 coral in there, that's why I had been holding off on any.
Did your sump have a refugium section? My opinion is that you are only feeding too much compared to how much you are removing. Seems like you rely on water exchange via wet skim(which lowers your salinity) and awc to remove excess nutrients. I feed a lot of food daily, dose amino acid, and reef roids;I have a decent refugium and nasty dark brown skimmate in the skimmer, my nitrates are under 5ppm. I don't do regular water changes either. I recommend using a refugium to export your excess nutrients. It will work well. Keep holding off on coral as well. Patience is priceless.
Yes, I have a ball of chaeto in there just need to put up my light. I'll make that priority as I have it already! Thank you for the insight and explanations, I greatly appreciate it. I didn't even think about that lowering my salinity. 
Don't rely 100% on the Apex conductivity probe for your salinity. Always double check it with a calibrated refractometer and clean all the probes every couple weeks. Just a quick soft bristle brushing while still underwater in their holder is all that's needed. You'll be surprised at the changes to the readings.
I think you're a little early in the game to be using an AWC system. Letting the tank mature more before using that will help. The system will use up Alk is it goes through the cycling as you can see from your current Alk level, it's the bacteria doing it's thing. An AWC is not going to replenish enough at this stage of the tank maturing. There's several cycles aquariums go through the first year to 18 months, it's not just the initial nitrogen cycle. The things you do can extend or shorten those cycles. So don't over complicate the system. The first 6 to 9 months follow the KISS method. Keep It Simple St...
You don't have corals that are going to get upset by a couple of large water changes and doing those will help reset the tanks parameters, beyond just the Alk.
I would also ease into the CUC, but you definitely need some snails. Get a dozen or so Banded Trochus snails and the same amount of Cerith snails. A Turbo or two wont hurt either, but a lot of them will only end up starving them all in a short time. As you go, you can always add more CUC and it's better than them starving and dying. Which not only sucks for them but the decay will dump nutrients. You've got a big enough tank for two conchs I just don't know if it's been up and running long enough to keep them a steady supply of food. Watch their activity for anything usual and maybe target feed them occasionally.
I've not a huge fan of hermits. But there are many that swear by them. I've found that that are all too willing to kill snails for their shells. If you go that route start small there too 15 to 20 blue legs. Another thing that will help is adding some pods if you haven't already.
The BRS series of vid's on the WWC tanks have a lot of good info. If you haven't, watch them a time or two. I still think that adding a bunch of corals right after the ugly phase is a very good idea, which is what they elude to. It's just not something I'd recommend someone new to the hobby to attempt. There's still a lot for them to learn.
I think you're a little early in the game to be using an AWC system. Letting the tank mature more before using that will help. The system will use up Alk is it goes through the cycling as you can see from your current Alk level, it's the bacteria doing it's thing. An AWC is not going to replenish enough at this stage of the tank maturing. There's several cycles aquariums go through the first year to 18 months, it's not just the initial nitrogen cycle. The things you do can extend or shorten those cycles. So don't over complicate the system. The first 6 to 9 months follow the KISS method. Keep It Simple St...
You don't have corals that are going to get upset by a couple of large water changes and doing those will help reset the tanks parameters, beyond just the Alk.
I would also ease into the CUC, but you definitely need some snails. Get a dozen or so Banded Trochus snails and the same amount of Cerith snails. A Turbo or two wont hurt either, but a lot of them will only end up starving them all in a short time. As you go, you can always add more CUC and it's better than them starving and dying. Which not only sucks for them but the decay will dump nutrients. You've got a big enough tank for two conchs I just don't know if it's been up and running long enough to keep them a steady supply of food. Watch their activity for anything usual and maybe target feed them occasionally.
I've not a huge fan of hermits. But there are many that swear by them. I've found that that are all too willing to kill snails for their shells. If you go that route start small there too 15 to 20 blue legs. Another thing that will help is adding some pods if you haven't already.
The BRS series of vid's on the WWC tanks have a lot of good info. If you haven't, watch them a time or two. I still think that adding a bunch of corals right after the ugly phase is a very good idea, which is what they elude to. It's just not something I'd recommend someone new to the hobby to attempt. There's still a lot for them to learn.
Update!!!
Still dealing with some different uglies, nitrates have dropped a bit but still high.
I did a 60 gallon water change on Monday which is about 40%. I plan to go get some pods tomorrow and drill my red sea ato to set up my refugium. Everything else is actually looking pretty good right now, alkalinity is up a bit and everything else is maintaining.
Salinity -1.024
Nitrates - about 30-40 ppm
Still dealing with some different uglies, nitrates have dropped a bit but still high.
I did a 60 gallon water change on Monday which is about 40%. I plan to go get some pods tomorrow and drill my red sea ato to set up my refugium. Everything else is actually looking pretty good right now, alkalinity is up a bit and everything else is maintaining.
Salinity -1.024
Nitrates - about 30-40 ppm
I'd do another water change this week and get your salinity up to 1.025. Then see how your Alk & Mag numbers shake out. If you're seeing 1.024 on your calibrated refractometer then your salinity probe is reading correct, which is good.
Here's a good calculator for the next water change to get the salinity up to 1.025. It'll tell you where you need to mix the replacement water based on the volume of water you're going to change.
Target Salinity Calculator
Aquarium calculator; Create a water-change schedule that can be used to reach a target salinity.
www.hamzasreef.com
Once that's done a minor adjustment of the Alk might need to be done to bump it up some and get it closer into balance with the Cal. Then until you get the fuge or something else in place to handle the nutrient export the only thing you can do to lower the Nitrates is continue to do water changes.
Im running an aquamaxx co3Hey that's certainly progress!
How big is your skimmer? What's your sump turnover rate?
It's odd - you seem to be one of the very few folks in Atlanta that is having nitrate issues in the other direction
https://www.marinedepot.com/aquamaxx-cones-co-3-in-sump-protein-skimmer.
Im not sure about the exact turnover, I'm running a l2 at about 50%. When I had the glow met on there, it was reading about 700gph at these return.
Thats just my luck, if it's raining in one spot of town thats where i need to go!!!
Well that’s a beast of a skimmer, and seems like your flow is giving good contact time.
How much are you feeding? Real amounts. Not the “oh yeah, I’m totally sticking to 2000 calories a day” forum post while you’re eating a double cheeseburger and washing it down with curly fries dipped in your extra large shake.
How much are you feeding? Real amounts. Not the “oh yeah, I’m totally sticking to 2000 calories a day” forum post while you’re eating a double cheeseburger and washing it down with curly fries dipped in your extra large shake.
Im only feeding pellets right now once a day, I haven't measured but about a pinch. It last about 5 minutes, so I could still cut back a bit. Thats the reason I switched to once a day feeding.
I also just ordered an icecap ats to help out, it should arrive in a couple of weeks.
I also just ordered an icecap ats to help out, it should arrive in a couple of weeks.
I have some clean up crew now, that I just got in. I haven't tested phosphates but nutrients are high, I have three last test above. I did a large water change and will be doing another one this weekend once my salt comes in. I also have an icecap ats on order.
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I really think that the brown stuff is diatoms, especially given such a new system.
Well I'm heating 50 gallons of water for another water change today. I think I might know what's causing my high nitrates I can't find one of my trochus snails. Well I think ive found it. I actually feel a bit dumb right now, I picked it up last week when I did my large water change and meant to remove it but didn't. I thought it was just a large piece of rock in my gravel. So I removed it and going to do a large water change and continue to use vibrant, hopefully this will get me back on track. I think he may have died after he decided to take a ride in my mp40.
It's amazing how much you can learn just from the little details of this hobby.
It's amazing how much you can learn just from the little details of this hobby.
I always had bad luck with snails on my old tanks, so I went mostly crabs this time. I have two emeralds and about 2 dozen blue and red leg hermits in my 90.
I only bought one Mexican Turbo snail for my CUC. There’s now at least 6 knuckle-sized stomatella snails (all hitchhikers) and I keep finding new babies. I recently bought a tiger conch and it’s an incredible workhorse, but my sandbed was getting a bit grimey.
How’s the tank look under blues? That covers up a good bit of the uglies
I only bought one Mexican Turbo snail for my CUC. There’s now at least 6 knuckle-sized stomatella snails (all hitchhikers) and I keep finding new babies. I recently bought a tiger conch and it’s an incredible workhorse, but my sandbed was getting a bit grimey.
How’s the tank look under blues? That covers up a good bit of the uglies
