high nitrates - help

Hello all. I just got my new test kit and my nitrates are very high. Other than water changes, is there anything else I can do to lower them? I'm in the process of turning my FOWLR into a "reef" to house an anemone hopefully and some mushrooms. My calcium is very high as well. My fish are all happy. MY tank is crystal clear with no nuisance algae or anything. All advice is welcome!

 

oldfishkeeper,

What are the values and the type of testing kit please?

Only water changes will bring it down quickly.

Do you have a skimmer?

Are you using RO/DI water?

Oh and moved to water chemistry.

 

It is an API test kit. If I'm reading it correctly, it's over 160. I have switched to RO/DI water from tap. I have a skimmer yes. Thanks for letting me know about the move-I saw the water chemistry thread after I posted - my bad.

 

What size tank?

What type of filtration are you using?

Do you have a sump, a cannister filter, ?

 

Sure no problem.

Can you test a batch of made up water not already added to the tank and compare the two.

If this is the test strip API, it might be a good idea to get that double checked at the local fish store.

Since you do not have corals as of yet and no one looks stressed you can probably get away with just doing some smaller routine water changes with the RO/DI until you get a handle on it.

Do you have a sump and can you add macro algae for long term to nitrate reduction.

Also cut back on feedings and rinse frozen foods.

 

How much live rock do you have in the tank (and in what size tank)? How long has the tank been running?

 

I have a 54 gallon tank with a good amount of live rock. I just removed about 10-15 pounds - it's hard for me to judge the amount. I have been running my tank approximately 15 years and the live rock is that old. I have about a 2 to 2 1/2 inch live sand bed (same age as rock). I run a canister. When I did my last water change (this weekend) I changed out about 7 gallons, removed 2 sponges of 4 and all of the ceramic rings out of the canister. I run the canister with carbon and phosguard. I have a not great skimmer and it's not pulling hardly anything out of the water. I do not have a sump and I don't believe I can look at adding one. Does this help? From everything I'm reading, I should be seeing more green, brown, or something with nitrates that high no?

 

oh coralline - it's the liquid type API test kit - I compare the test tube to a strip and it's pretty clear that my nitrates are off the charts as well as calcium. Weird. Where is the calcium coming from?

 

One possible reason could be since you removed 2 of 4 sponges, and all of the ceramic rings you had. That may have made up more of your biological filter than you thought. Did you disturb the sand bed by any chance?

 

yes, the sand bed was disturbed. It really was moved around quite frequently though because I had a very busy engineer goby in there that constantly kept most of it stirred up. Unfortunately, there's no way to compare my before change parameters to after....I could have been running high nitrates all along....how often should I be doing water changes?