Nitrates

I am having issues with my tank. It's approx 4 months old, it's a 20 long with 18 lb of lr and 1.5 inches of live sand. There are 4 hermits 3 snails and 1 brittle star I run a filter 24/7. My ammonia is 0 nitrites 0 but still have a nitrate cl of 20ish ppm and it won't drop I do a 1 gallon water change weekly and yet still nothing . Any ideas on what I can do to make them drop?

 

I would say try some larger water changes. 1 gallon isn't very much. Your tank is still fairly young, so this isn't too big a deal. Are you having any issues with algae or anything?

 

check your water change math, a 1g water change for a 20g is with 20ppm is only going to bring nitrate to 19ppm, so if you do a 25%water change your nitrate will go down to 15ppm

 

I already had my red algae outbreak already green is showing up a little and so is brown. Yea I have been thinking I need to do bigger water changes. Are my nitrates to high for me to add anything like coral or fish or shrimp etc?

 

20 ppm is fine for livestock, soft corals, and most LPS. Just don't add any SPS.

 

Nitrates actually only play a small part in algea growing. If you are having algea problems then its most likely phosphate And sillicate problems. What kimd of water are u using?
I have a 10gal tank and i do about 1 1/2-2gal water change a week! My nitrates dont go above 5ppm. You need to do larger water changes to get it down more. I would go about 5gal water change a week to get the nitrates down, then when they are where you are comfortable with do about 3gal water changes a week to keep it there.

 

Very good point. We have one small spot of hair algae in our tank that hasn't spread (about a year now). We have no other algae even with consistent nitrates.