can't lower my Nitrate.......

Not sure if anyone had read my thread on the pericellis SP flat worms that i had in my tank or not, But long story short....I tore my 55G reef apart, and removed about a dozen small little pericellis sp worms and 1 huge mother of a worm.

I had to dip my LR in FW in order to get them to come out of hiding.

All my corals seemed to take it fine and are all doing good.

I only dipped my large pieces of LR and only the ones with large holes that could be inhabited by pests.

This has obviously caused a mini cycle to occur..

My ammonia is at 0 , nitrite is 0 but i cant seem to get my nitrate down to 0....its at about 20ppm

I have done frequent small water changes, and one or two larger water changes since i did the tear down. I cant seem to get it any lower that 20ppm

any suggestions?

 

20ppm isn't too bad. Do you use rodi water? Have you tested your salt for nitrate? When is the last time you thoroughly cleaned all of your equipment? Check your tank of detritus piles and siphon them out. Blow off your rock with a turkey baster just before you change your water.

 

I use RODI water, all my equipment was cleaned very well about 3 weeks ago when i tore down the tank.

How do you test salt for nitrate?? I use reef crystals always for my salt mix as its the best option available to me locally.

The areas where there was some detritus accumulated has grown hair algae on those spots.

My cleanup crew is putting a good dent in the hair algae.

The only area that has not been cleaned is my refugium.... its a total mess but i think that is the point right?

Should i remove my macro algae and mangroves, and clean out the fuge as well?


I replaced my crushed coral substrate that i originally had with some sugar size aragonite. The crushed coral substrate before the tear down was a huge blanket of hair algae.... it was out of control.

I have since adjusted the direction of my powerheads so the food i feed doesn't end up in my overflow sponge filter, i feed less food now because the fish have more time to gobble it up before the overflow sucks it into the fuge.

I also got rid of my HOB aqua clear 70 filter and got a fluval canister filter.

 

What is your bioload? How many and what kind of fish in what size tank.

 

I have a large foxface, a coral beauty, mated perculas, 2 cleaner shrimps, a 6 line wrasse, a hippo tang, and 5 chromis in a 55G with a 20G fuge.

Aprox 65 lbs LR

 

Try some purigen and chemi pure. It knocked my nitrates in my nano down from 20 to 0 in no time.

 

Sometimes it's REALLY hard to bring down nitrates with a heavy bioload so that you can't keep up with them with water changes and "additives/absorbers". If there is a large amount of ammonia being produced, it can be difficult to keep nitrates lower than what you are seeing.

 

A large fox face, and a hippo in a 55... and you have other fish too.. man your really crowding that tank, those fish probably excrete waste too fast for you to keep those trates down. I wouldnt put all those fish in my 75, maybe a 90 but probably nothing less than 125 gallons. and thats pushing it.

65 lbs of lr displaces a lot of water, theres probably only what, 40 gallons total in the system then? If i were you i would try n part with some fish, and i guarantee the trates will go down.

 

I never had issues before with nitrates or ammonia, this all happened after i tore the reef apart to find the pests in the LR that were dining on my shrimps.

I have a 90G that is waiting to be drilled. The 55G is going to become my fuge. I have been waiting patiently for a week now and the place doing the drilling was suppose to have it done 3 days ago.

looks like its now going to be done in the new year.

The hippo tang is a baby and i reluctantly took it in because a friend of mine who will remain nameless(such an idiot!) killed off every other fish and this baby one was near death....It was not cared for and the tang would not come up off the bottom of my tank for the first 2 days. It lost a lot of color and its breathing was labored (was in a tank with very high ammonia).

The foxface is going back to the LFS....I just don't care much for this fish at all... its always so skidish and will go darting into the LR like its getting attacked which will panic all the other fish.

The hippo tang is doing great now, eating like a pig, no ich to speak of...

I have for the record never lost a fish due to water quality (had 1 wrasse jump out) found it dried up on the floor one morning.

My ammonia still tests out at 0ppm.

Today my nitrates tested at 10ppm so they are declining...

 

You probably stirred up the sand bed a lot in doing so, Thats what stores the nitrites/nitrates could be part of the problem