I'm Having Nitrate Problems! Help!

So, I just moved yesterday into my new apartment. I have a 33 gallon tank that is about 5 months old with 2 ocellaris clowns, a cleaner wrasse and a firefish. A few large glass anemones (I want to keep them) and a small frag of star polyps. My nitrates were usually down around 0ppm- 5ppm. Yesterday when I moved my tank I brought as much water from the tank as I could in a large clean plastic container. I put all the water and live rocks back in my tank and still needed to fill the tank roughly 1/4 with conditioned, salted tap water. I tested the water friom the tank yesterday and for some reason my nitrates had boosted from 5ppm to 10ppm. Today they are at 20ppm!!!!!!!!! I am freaking out! So I tested the water from the tap and it has 0ppm nitrates. Ammonian, Nitrites, and pH are all perfect. Where did all this Nitrate come from? Is it from sloshing around all of the water from moving or something? How can I get my Nitrates back down to at least 5ppm? The lower the better though.

 

Did you move the sand?

 

First, relax and take a deep breath. While we like to keep our nitrate lower, 20 is really not harmful to your livestock.

To get the nitrate lower, get some ro/di water and do a small water change, maybe 10%, then check again. Repeat as necessary.

NOTE: While there may not be any nitrates in your tap water, there most likely are nutrients and pollutants that will be broken down into nitrates.

 

The sand was inside the aquarium with a small amount of water still in it. I tried getting as much dust , dirt and polutants out of the tub the water was carried in as best I could. I suppose that is where the nitrates could have come from. I'll start doing water changes to see if that will help.

 

My tank has been at 20ppm for about a month now. I just got them down to 10ppm the other day. Everything I have still looks great and is growing well (lots of soft coral). I'm still trying to get my nitrates down to nothing but the point is that 20ppm is really not a big deal short term. A spike from 0 to 20 might be a different story though. I think so far you've got some good advice. Water changes and patience. Maybe a little bit of carbon thrown into the mix?

 

I totally forgot about carbon. I'll pick some up and place it in my filter. Thanks.