nitrates going crazy...treat with vodka??????

I had an emperor angel, Dogface,Black Volitan Lionfish, Fu Manchu dwarf and, blue ribbon eel and a shark

these fish were in a 90G? WAYYYYY TOO MANY large, messy feeders. What kind of shark did you have in there? All the sharks i am aware of require couple hundred gallons of water.

Nitrate went up because of all the waste that these fish produce. In a predator tank you are always going to have nitrates but frequent water changes will help that.

I personally would not recommend vodka dosing in your case. It can result in some oxygen problems, which you probably already have problems with. Add some powerheads to your tank to help that. Plus consider getting rid of the shark

Sharks have very poor eyesight and require a lot of open swimming room at the bottom of the tank. if you have 150lb of rock in a 90g there isnt a whole lot of room for him to swim and probably has cut himself up pretty good

Rereading all the post I cant tell if it is a 125 or 90g tank. Regardless too many fish and the shark will not survive

 

It was a banded cat shark. And everything was only 3 inches except for the shark and eel. But as I stated I did 25% WCs every week.

 

The high nitrates were after the first fish died and then the second died after we found out about the high nitrates....went and had the water tested and nitrates were back down to almost 0 and everything else was within normal limits....

 

are you sure you are talking nitrates and not ammonia. Either someone was doing/telling the test wrong or something is not right. Nitrates do not just drop back down to zero even with 25% water changes. It is a very fractional small drop with each water change. Ammonia.....yeah that will do that but not nitrate. Besides nitrates at 30 is nothing in a predator tank and even when it is "sky high" will not usually affect fish that has been in the tank for a while

I still stand that you had too many fish in the tank and it caused a cycle causing your ammonia to go up high, killing a fish, rising the ammonia higher and then causing the nitrates to go up. This can be an evil cycle as the ammonia keeps going up with each fish death, which then causes the fish death.

You definately need to get ride of the coral banded shark MINIMAL TANK SIZE IS 180g and I would go so far to state 200g at VERY MINIMAL!
Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums: Cat Shark, Black Banded

I would also recommend you getting your own test kits. If you are spending this amount of money on fish, spending another $30 for a test kit is a no brainer! I would also get a refractometer. Trust me a small price to pay!

Also the other question i have is how long has the tank been up and when has the fish been added. How long have they been in the tank and how many were added at the same time.

Please do not take offense, but I really do not think the nitrates HAD ANYTHING to do with your loss. I am just trying to help solve what is causing it and help you out.

 

I dont think he stated he has a shark.

 

yeah he did......

It was a banded cat shark

it has since died i think

 

I also do not see where the OP mentioned a shark.

 

omg............i am sorry! I lost track of who had what! Reefbruh had the shark earlier, he posted on this thread what he had. I am sorry. rough week

 

no shark

no i do not have a shark...the only thing that i have left in my 125 is a porcupine puffer and a snowflake eel....i started off with a volitain lionfish, a porcupine puffer, a half black angel, a butterfly fish, an orange lined trigger, and a fuzzy dwarf. The half black killed the volitain so i got rid of the angel,the trigger killed the butterfly so i got rid of the trigger as i learned how aggressive he was and was left with just the fuzzy dwarf and the porcupine. I since added a dogface puffer and a snowflake eel. Because of all of my water quality issues I lost my fuzzy dwarf and dogface so now i have just the porcupine and eel left. I think i have the tank under control....i ended up doing the vodka treatments and got my water retested and nitrates were back down to 0 and everything else was within normal limits. I will continue to dose with the vodka and get the water checked in another week and i will see where i am at that point. If anyone has any other suggestions i would appreciate them. Thanks for all of your help.

 

Ahh sigh....

ATS, algae turf scrubber. Do you really want to have to dose a tank that is going to require larger than the average feedings with vodka long term? The results of dosing vodka takes to time to reflect in water chemistry values, so if you are already seeing lower nitrates your values were initially off. I can see the benefits on dosing a smaller reef tank with vodka but not 125 gallon that is going to house large fish that require larger feedings.