Nitrate Question

First the history..
I have a 29 that has been set up for about 2 months. I purchased 100 lbs of live rock that came with some livestock since the guy was taking down his tank. I placed 35lbs of LR and a ball of Chaeto (about the size of a small basketball) in the tank along with an assortment of Hermits, a Serpent Star, and 2 peppermint shrimp. the tank has a canister filter filled with just filter pad (was in a hurry at setup)

I got a small Zoa frag last week but short of that nothing else has been added to the tank.

My params looked fine (ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5ppm, PH 8.2) until last week before i added the frag. The Nitrates were about 20ppm so I did a decent 4gal water change.

This week my nitrates are sitting at about 35ppm. I cannot figure out why. I only drop a couple shrimp pellets in about every other day for the shrimp.

I also did 2 ammonia tests, one API and one Red Sea. API read 0ppm, Red sea read .5ppm. Short of possibly a hermit dying I cannot figure out where it is coming from.

 

the cnister filter... i had one on my 20 gallon and took it off and it started going down. It went from 80ppm nitrate APt kit to 20 ppm in about 2 weeks with regular water changes. also added a hob skimmer and it really helped a ton.

 

have you removed and rinsed out that cannister filter and filter pad in last couple of months Dustin?


Steve

 

Your having the same problem i had, i found the source was actually die off in my live rock, i also purchased from a well established tank, and my newly set-up tank actually caused die off, if you can next time you a water change clean up your rocks by swooshing your rocks in your old tank water, it should help tremendously.

 

Not yet. I just checked my dates and the tank has been up for 6 weeks. Also it is a glass bottom.

 

the power rinsing the rock work as described by shackman is a good idea IMO
There may be accumluted debris on that

next water change
use a power head and blast the rocks to get any sediment into the water
allow the cannister to remove it
then switch off the cannister, remove the floss and clean that in a bucket of tank water
and then also rinse around the cannister with the tank water

then in future rinse the media in tank water at every water change
or even consider getting rid of the floss in there and just running carbon or other chemical media inside

Steve

 

will do, thanks!

I can pick up the carbon this weekend.

I was planning on hitting up Pacific East Aquaculture again on Saturday to get another frag. Do you think it is fine adding another?

 

if you can get your nitrates to below 20ppm after doing a water change and cleaning the rock and cannister then I would say yes

but at present what you are indicated is a climbing trend
they where at 20- they have risen to 35
and whilst they are climbing, I would be hesitant to continue adding stock

20ppm is fine for most soft corals and even LPS
but you dont want them escalating out of control on you

Steve