Nitrates won't go down

Hello again...

I have been patiently waiting; completing water changes (once a week), added a new protien skimmer - AquaC Remora (1-1/2 ago), changed feeding from twice a day to once a day (about 3 months ago) and I cannot get my nitrates down. I test for Nitrite, PH, Alkalinity and they are all fine...but my Nitrates are at 80 ppm. I have added a couple of corals in the last month and they are doing fine as well as the fish. Oh and have also added another 20 lbs of life rock. Please help as I don't know what to do now besides taking all the water out and I'm afraid one of these mornings I will wake up and have a huge Nirate spike with no living livestock :-[. (I don't have a sump or any other high tech stuff ;D)

 

There may be new nitrates from some of the life die-off from the live rock you added.
You may want to get or build one of those coiled denitrators like Packleader and PharmerJohn have.

 

You may also want to suspect your test kit. When things behave how they shouldn't based on test results don't rule out the tests themselves. You might take your water to the LFS for a full battery of tests.

 

Oops...I was thinking live rock but actually it was base/dead rock that I nuked and added to the tank.

 

Put some Chaetomorpha in. I put it in mine when my nitrates were 15 and now they are 0.

 

Doublecheck your nitrate kit though for sure with another brand or at an LFS.

What sort of substrate do you have? Maybe that needs to be cleaned as well. There are some excess organics somewhere whether it's fish waste or something stuck in your sandbed or in your rock or something.

Also depending on the size of all of your fish you may just be overstocked.

 

Yeah, if you can get another kit (since we don't have an LFS). You would be suprised at how often the kits go bad. I keep three just for that reason; when something just isn't right I test with another to verify. It has saved me quite a few headaches.
The other thing is, have you been able to get rid of that second tang? If not that could have a lot to do with it. How long ago did you add the base rock? Base will take 6-8 weeks to really start to become affective.

 

Hello, I put that base rock in my tank about 1 month ago. Will be adding lot more but I am nuking it. And Yes, I still have that tang!

So I tried another test kit...API and it came up with 10ppm the first time and 20 ppm the second...ahhh! The first test kit I was using was the dip strips. I don't know, I guess I will have to buy a third test kit like you said Packleader.

My substrate is crushed rock/shells...should I be siphoning that??? I have never cleaned that at all. I haven't vacuumed it because I have cernith snails in the bottom; don't want to suck them up. What should I do?? Please tell.....

 

Crushed coral substrates have been known to be nitrate producers because lots of stuff gets stuck down in there. Vacuuming it is probably a good idea. Something like one of these I believe. It doesn't actually suck up anything that has any weight to it like a snail or the substrate if used properly, it's just designed to lift the substrate up and lift all the detritus and junk that is stuck in the substrate.
Aquarium Gravel Cleaner

Heard bad things about test strip accuracy as well. I would trust the API kits more but don't let that deter you from vacuuming your substrate.

 

I have vacuumed the gravel for the first time and pulled up alot of junk so thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!!