Nitrates

I have about 60 lbs of LR in the tank and my feeding schedule is once a day. I sprinkle a minimal amount of pellet food in, let them eat it and then I will add a little more after they are done with the piece they have in their mouths so I don't have all that many left overs that touch bottom and what does, gets eaten by the snails and crabs.

My nitrites are at 0
my phosphates are at 0
my salinity is 1.023

The only thing I can think of is I remember my nitrates hit 100ppg before I started doing things the right way and then I did a 50% water change, got a new skimmer, got rid of the HOB filter and got the fluval 305. Maybe I just haven't diluted that crappy water enough yet?

 

Hmm maybe I will try the nitrate removing media and see how that works and then go back to those little ceramic bio balls fluval has and see if I can maintain 0 nitrates. If that doesn't work, I know the source of the problem is legacy nitrate issues and to continue narrowing down the problem.

 

Well maybe your on your way to undetectable nitrate levels. It will take some time to get the levels down to zero. Do us a favor and test your top off water and "water change" water for nitrates and ammonia. Maybe hold off on stocking your tank a little and see what happens. Try some macro algae in your DT and let the skimmer do its thing. Water changes only help to a certain extent, so don't rely on them much.

 

I used to use tap water which was a problem and then I learned how evil tap water can be so I got an RODI setup and I test for nitrate/amonia before adding it to my tank. I usually let my salt dissolve for a day before adding it to my tank. The only stock I have is a starfish, an urchin, 2 clowns, and a neon dotty back. oo and some snails.

 

Well it looks like I have my nitrates and phosphates at 0ppg now I am now using Seachem Matrix Carbon, Seachem Matrix Bio Media, Seachem Phosguard and Fluval polishing pads. Everything is looking good thus far. I do have the beginnings of a hair algae outbreak, but I am guessing that will starve off. I just put the new media in on Sunday and before that my nitrates were at 20ppg and my phosphates were at 0ppg.

 

I'm glad you got the problem settled. It's amazing how fast that stuff works, huh? Every couple months or so, when you do a water change, take the old water you are about to throw away, and use it to rinse the Seachem Matrix bio-media. I do this just to keep the media clean and free of detritus. You'll come to find that Matrix media works really good. I haven't seen nitrates in my tank since I started using that stuff. I still test about once a month, just to make sure though..

 

Shoot, I'm still fighting 40+ppm and I have Zoas growing like crazy. Still trying to drop it just added some mangroves maybe that will help.