High Nitrates

Gabridge83

Gabridge83

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Ok guys as most of you know this is our first salt water tank and we have been fighting extremely high nitrates. We use the api test kit for now until we can get a Hanna or something else. The api kit says we are at 160 +. All of our corals are thriving, growing and multiplying. We have cut back on feedings, clean filters 3-4 days frequent water changes. We run a Refugium now that we set up 2 weeks ago and the Cheato has doubled in size. We have been using bio-pellets in a reactor for a month now; gfo and activated carbon in media bags. We are dosing with 4ml of Red Sea NOPOX daily with no change. It seems like something is throwing off the reading since everything is doing so well. Is there anything y’all can think of?
 
Honestly api kits are horrible in my opinion. Gfo isn't going to change nitrate, only phosphate and won't do much in a media bag.

Where are you getting your topoff water from? Is it the same water you use for mixing salt?
 
bhodges82 said:
Honestly api kits are horrible in my opinion. Gfo isn't going to change nitrate, only phosphate and won't do much in a media bag.

Where are you getting your topoff water from? Is it the same water you use for mixing salt?
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Our top off water and salt water both come from Atlanta Aquarium. We tested it just to rule it out and it has zero nitrates.
 
It sounds like you're doing everything right. I use the Salifert test kits for nitrate and it certainly wouldn't hut to pick up one of those to get another (and better) reading. It sounds like you've made a lot of changes to combat the issue but it's only been a month. When I used NOPOX, it took a while to get the desired results, same thing with the refugium. I've never ran a biopellet reactors but it's my understanding that they rely on bacteria to eliminate nitrates and that would certainly take at least a month to start seeing result. As long as your corals are fine, I wouldn't change anything. Frequent water changes, cleaning filters and media, reduce feeding, refugium, NOPOX - you've hit all of the methods I've successfully used to combat the issue of nitrates. I suspect that now it's just a matter of letting them do their work and that just takes some time.
 
jcook54 said:
It sounds like you're doing everything right. I use the Salifert test kits for nitrate and it certainly wouldn't hut to pick up one of those to get another (and better) reading. It sounds like you've made a lot of changes to combat the issue but it's only been a month. When I used NOPOX, it took a while to get the desired results, same thing with the refugium. I've never ran a biopellet reactors but it's my understanding that they rely on bacteria to eliminate nitrates and that would certainly take at least a month to start seeing result. As long as your corals are fine, I wouldn't change anything. Frequent water changes, cleaning filters and media, reduce feeding, refugium, NOPOX - you've hit all of the methods I've successfully used to combat the issue of nitrates. I suspect that now it's just a matter of letting them do their work and that just takes some time.
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Ok thank you! We will stay the course. It seems we are getting hit with everything with this tank so I guess in a way it’s teaching us on what to do with our next.
 
Ya, you'll have it well in hand before too long. It might even now be as bad as you think if you run the Salifter test. For me, I did NOPOX with nitrates in the 60s and that alone brought them down to a reasonable level. One thing I didn't mention is that whenever I start a cycle of NOPOX, I always add some additional biological filtration. Typically a media bag full of Seachem's Matrix. Any biological growth media will work (bio balls, bio blocks, matrix, etc.) but the whole theory of carbon dosing is based on increased bacterial growth and population so anything you can do to give said bacteria more "space" is helpful.

When you see pink slime in your sump, don't worry, it'll just be bacteria. When I've carbon dosed, I ended up with all kinds of pink-ish/tan colored snot looking stuff growing in my sump. You'll see something similar in your biopellet reactor.
 
jcook54 said:
Ya, you'll have it well in hand before too long. It might even now be as bad as you think if you run the Salifter test. For me, I did NOPOX with nitrates in the 60s and that alone brought them down to a reasonable level. One thing I didn't mention is that whenever I start a cycle of NOPOX, I always add some additional biological filtration. Typically a media bag full of Seachem's Matrix. Any biological growth media will work (bio balls, bio blocks, matrix, etc.) but the whole theory of carbon dosing is based on increased bacterial growth and population so anything you can do to give said bacteria more "space" is helpful.

When you see pink slime in your sump, don't worry, it'll just be bacteria. When I've carbon dosed, I ended up with all kinds of pink-ish/tan colored snot looking stuff growing in my sump. You'll see something similar in your biopellet reactor.
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We have red slime in the sump, on rocks and on the Cheato. When we do a water change we just blow it off
 
2 clowns 1 fairy wrasse (will be upgrading him to a bigger tank hopefully soon) and a small red ruby dragonet
 
civics14 said:
That's it?? Something is off. I'd agree with others regarding the API test kit. With that live stock, your weekly water changes, I'd have to say that API reading is incorrect.
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Lol I wish it was more but one of our clowns is a $&@?! My husband had some reward points and ordered a Red Sea kit yesterday. It should be here Thursday.
 
Your test kit seems out of wack. But if you really do have high nitrates, and you get your water from the lfs, and your maintenance schedule is as you say, maybe your live rocks/material are leaching? Although if your corals are good and your fish are fine and everything seems normal with no massive algae growth everywhere, then the API kit is just probably off. And if you have cyano in the sump, that would be indicative of low nutrients not high. You would need to dose bacteria, add media for the bacteria- matrix or some such material, and dose phyto to bring things into balance and that will help with cyano or red slime.
 
I would get an accurate test kit, like the Red Sea. I would avoid carbon dosing, that stuff is varsity level reefing and so much can go wrong. Focus on skimming and export of waste, and watch feeding. And water changes.
 
So update on our Nitrates; we did get a Red Sea test kit and the results were pretty right on with API’s. We’ve gone to cleaning our sponges in the caddy every 2 days in fresh clean saltwater. Just by doing that and adding 4-5 marine pure spheres in our refugium our nitrates have slowly dropped now to about 50ppm. We did add a green mandarin this weekend other than that nothing else has changed with the tank.
 
Sweet! That a significant reduction and now you've got high nitrates instead of "Oh my God!" nitrates. Good job!
 
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