Nitrates alittle high

Ok, so I have a 30 gallon tank and I did a 5 gallon water change yesterday. I just checked my nitrates and there around 60. Wut else can I do to bring them down?

 

the real solution to this problem is to find out why they are there

can you describe your set up, including your filter system
how much live rock do you have
do you have a sump
how often and what do you feed?
do you have a skimmer if so what type

prevention is better than cure, and I am sure the solution to the problem will come from the answers to above

there are various methods to control nitrates - Nitraductor, chemical media etc

but in many cases ,fine tuning existing set up, controlling your feeding, maintaining and cleaning any mechanical filtration, increased skimming, increasing amount of live rock, live rock rubble - can often result in much lower concentrations of nitrates

Steve

 

Do more water changes. Tell us more about your tank and routine.

 

my tank is a 30 gallon tank. It just has a standard filter for a 55 gallon tank. Other than that I just have a power head. My buddy owns a pet store and came to my house and looked at my tank and said there was no need for a skimmer. I have 5 damsels 2 clowns and a coral beauty. Other than that, i have 3 emeralds and a bunch of hermits and snails. I feed them once a day with spectrum pellet food and twice a week they get brine shrimp. They get 6 hours of day light and 6 hours of antic light.

 

my opinion

fair enough in a lightly stocked 30 gallon , no need for a skimmer
but with 8 fish in there its not lightly stocked (7 inches if fish would be about borderline in that sized tank)

I have only got 5 fish in a 70 gallon tank and I use a skimmer (I keep corals also)

your feeding is not the problem IMO
but the bioload is a bit heavy -
do you rinse your filter every week when you do water changes (using the old water you are taking from the tank) it might be a simple case of built up waste/ rubbish in the filter giving you this high nitrate level



Steve

 

Well if you don't have corals. N03 of 60 isn't a big deal. How long has the tank been running? Oh yeah welcome to 3reef!

 

thanks for the welcome. The tank has been setup for 6 months. I have 25lbs of live rock and 30 lbs of base rock. Im gonna try rinsing my filter. See if that will help

 

What kind of skimmer do you use? Do you have enough rocks in your tank? Do you use ro/di water? Cut your feeding and do a weekly water change. With a quality skimmer, enough rocks, and weekly water change using ro/di water, I was able to maintain my nitrate to 20. It has been like this for a year. I bought a sulfur denitrator and it lower my nitrate down to 0 in less than a month. I bought it from this seller at ebay. I can actually see the difference in my corals. Some of the coral I have now looks greener. Sulfur Denitrator- 0 Nitrates without water changes! - eBay (item 330336412271 end time Jun-15-09 13:43:57 PDT)

 

If you change 10 gallons it would bring it down to 40. I would just do like an 8 gallon change and then a couple days later do another. If the nitrate stays in that range for fish only I think it's fine. If NO3 is increasing probably time to cut feeding and or maybe get a skimmer. If you have some sort of sponges/filter socks clean them out weekly or more if necessary.

 

ok, thanks guys