I need help getting my Nitrates under control

Hi Everyone, This is my first post and may not be an emergancy but, I am new to saltwater tanks and am not sure....

I bought a 125g tank from a guy off of CL, yesterday. I saved about 50 gallons of the water he had and replaced the rest with new water from the local reef shop. It has about 250lbs of live rock, I replaced the crushed coral that he had in the tank with fresh 80lbs. of live sand.....

I ran test last night and the PH (8.2), Nitrites (0), Amonia (0) all were good But, the Nitrates, They are off the scale at about 140. The Salinity is running a hair over 32 and the gravity is at 1.024

I need help getting my Nitrates under control, My goal is to eventually have fish, live rock, and a little coral if possible... Still learning what i can and can't do at the same time.

Any help will be appreciated, thanks in advance for those that respond....

My Tank setup:

125g Glass aquarium
2- 36" 2 bulb smartlites 1 Blue, 1 White
30g Megaflow Wet dry filter
80lbs of fresh live sand With 1" plenum under sand bed
250lbs. of live rock
1- large Green britltle starfish

 

Welcome t 3reef.

Congratulations on the new set up.
What test kit are you using? Did you run the test a second time?
I would get it double checked at the LFS, and proceed once you have it double checked.

Was the rock completely cured? Did it come from a running system? Was it allowed to dry out?

 

OK I would give the wet/dry a major cleaning and work on converting it to a sump only by removing 1/4 of the filter material every week or so. The live rock will be your nitrogen filter. I would also give the live rock are good blowing off by using a turkey baster to dislodge any accumulated detritus. Do the rock first then rinse out the filter material after the water clears and repeat the rock cleaning and rinsing until you have minimal detritus coming from the tank into the filter. Then give the filter the major cleaning. You could do another large water change after the first basting session if you want. Then I would do one more large water change to work on getting the nitrates down. Keep doing water changes until the level is acceptable. Make sure you are using RODI water for water changes as tap water can have quite high nitrate levels. Also check the nitrates on the water from you LFS to see where is is at.

 

I did run the test twice and am using a saltwater master liquid test kit made by aquarium pharmaceuticals..... I did not have the LPS check the water but may do that now.

The guy i bought the tank from had it up and running for 2yrs. (I think that would mean it was cured) Like I said I am a noob to saltwater tanks...

I kept the LR in new plastic trash cans covered in water all the way home.

Thanks for the welcome to the board!!

 

Very good job an the move and welcome to 3reef. Definitely test the LFS water to be safe as they sometimes forget to check to see if their RODI units are working if they even use one.

 

I cleaned the filter really good before putting things back together and changed the filter material. Am I right in not rinsing the bio balls (they did dry out on the way home) The LPS says they use only RO/DI water but i did not check the nitrates before putting in the tank. (guess i may be too trusting)

I had planned on doing another major water change tomorrow because there is major settlement in the bottom of the tank. from the old water. looks really bad on top of the new sand and rock. I was going to vaccuum it up with the siphon cleaner and replace 30 to 40 gallons.

I have been reading about doing a refugium and was wandering if I could do one in the middle compartment of my wet dry filer? it is a large megaflow model 4 and there is alot of empty area between the bio balls and the return pump...

 

Yes I would get it double checked at the LFS if that is convenient.

Also follow 2in10's advice about cleaning all filters/rocks and checking your source water for nitrates before adding it to the tank.

Cured rock typically has been in a running systems, is well colonized with nitrifying bacteria. Live rock typically means rock taken from the ocean, it may have types of sponges and algae and some inverts on it. Some will live and some will die off, the die off starts a cycle with ammonia levels detected, then nitrite and lastly nitrates.

 

Yes you could to a refuge in the sump and you did well by not using the bioballs since they dried out.

 

Those bioballs are where its coming from. Letting them dry out then reimmersing them in tank water killed most of the bacteria on them. Your ammonia fixing bacteria did their job and your dealing with the end result nitrates. I would probably pull the bioballs.

 

I honestly would wait until everything settled and then see where you stand. You just greatly disturbed an established tank, I would retest in a week to see what you really have. Clean everything though, as said.