55 gallon nitrate help

[sld7530]

We have 55 gallon FOWLR salt water tank. We use the fluval 305. We have had the tank set up for 4 months now. Our tank was doing great with a chocolate chip star fish, a snowflake eel, a fox face rabbit fish, and a bursa trigger. Despite regular water changes Our nitrates have been a problem since we started. We had our LFS check the water and the water tested safe for new fish which left me thinking I did the nitrate test wrong.
Since our fish were all doing well( and the LFS said water was good)we decided to add a panther grouper(with intentions to
Upgrade when needed with his growing size) and a dwarf lion fish. The lion fish died after one night and a day later our fox face who had been in the tank for weeks also died. I checked the level and all of a sudden our pH which was never a problem dropped to a 7.2 and our nitrates are off the chart 160ppm(API test). I have been adding seachem reef buffer for pH an it is still low about 7.8. We changed our filter with biochem a week before adding the new fish. We also added an instant ocean protein skimmer last night(I know it was cheap but our LFS is an all day trip so we had to go to our local ***** an this is all there was). In desperation we also have added natural nitrate reducer from instant ocean.
We are going to do another water change (10 gallons) tonight. Is there any other advice to regulate pH and lowering nitrate?
Could anything else I'm my aware of be harming the fish?
I don't want my other fish to die!
Thanks!

 

[mr. limpid]

first sorry to hear of your loses, triggers and lions don't mix. Keeping nitrates down in a FOWLR is hard if you can get them down to 20ppm you are doing good. Regular maintenance on your canister filter, monthly or twice a month will help. Adding protein skimmer definitely helps, also carbon or chem pure will get rid of organics. Are you using RO/DI water? Also check the peram's of your water changes could be lacking PH buffers there or adding nitrates and or phosphates.
"Could anything else I'm my aware of be harming the fish?"
What are the other param's of your tank?

 

[sld7530]

We have been buying gallons of distilled water and mixing with instant ocean salt and adding the pH buffer.
My grouper is now starting to lay sideways after swimming a few laps around the tank he returns to the same spot and lays down. He was swimming all day. I'm
Afraid he is dying too.
I just tested again and nitrate is still very high above 160
Nitrite which was a 0 is now a .25
And ammonia is staying at .25
The trigger eel and star fish are all acting normal.
The grouper hasn't ate since we added him on saturday. I think he needs to eat live since he wasn't fully on frozen before leaving the store. But afraid live will destroy our nitrate level.

Thanks for the help!!!

 

[mr. limpid]

Did you see him eat at the LFS? Ask the LFS what they were feeding him and do the same. Water changes to get nitrates down. You need to test your water change water, this may be a source of high nitrates.

 

[geridoc]

.25 ammonia is too high - it should always be at zero. Same for nitrites. Your stock list is full of very sloppy eaters, each of which alone can do a good job of polluting a tank, so I think your tank is going through a mini-cycle. You need to get the nitrogen levels down fast to save your remaining fish. Either do some water changes and/or add Amquel Plus to the tank as recommended on the bottle. Amquel converts the nitrogen compounds into non-toxic (or at least, less toxic) compounds that are still used by the bacteria, so the bacterial population will increase to meet the load. With the kind of fish you are stocking you should leave several weeks between additions to be sure that you don't overload the capacity of the bacterial processing capacity of the tank.

 

[sweatervest13]

Quote:
Originally Posted by GeriDoc http:///t/391903/55-gallon-nitrate-help#post_3477641
.25 ammonia is too high - it should always be at zero. Same for nitrites. Your stock list is full of very sloppy eaters, each of which alone can do a good job of polluting a tank, so I think your tank is going through a mini-cycle. You need to get the nitrogen levels down fast to save your remaining fish. Either do some water changes and/or add Amquel Plus to the tank as recommended on the bottle. Amquel converts the nitrogen compounds into non-toxic (or at least, less toxic) compounds that are still used by the bacteria, so the bacterial population will increase to meet the load. With the kind of fish you are stocking you should leave several weeks between additions to be sure that you don't overload the capacity of the bacterial processing capacity of the tank.
+1
I say water changes and Amquel Plus or Prime. If you do a 50% WC, you should cut all the levels in half instantly. I think that this is your best bet.
Welcome to the site!!

 

[sld7530]

Thanks everyone. We feed the grouper one live fish and now he is eating anything. In fact he took food from our trigger. We feed them once a day(we are starting to cut back to every other day but our LFS said they were feed variety everyday). We completed a water change all
Levels were where we needed them to be in the water change water. Waiting a little while to test the water in the tank again but the remaining fish seem to be doing well.
Thanks!

 

[maxxnme]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sld7530 http:///t/391903/55-gallon-nitrate-help#post_3477542
We have been buying gallons of distilled water and mixing with instant ocean salt and adding the pH buffer.
My grouper is now starting to lay sideways after swimming a few laps around the tank he returns to the same spot and lays down. He was swimming all day. I'm
Afraid he is dying too.
I just tested again and nitrate is still very high above 160
Nitrite which was a 0 is now a .25
And ammonia is staying at .25
The trigger eel and star fish are all acting normal.
The grouper hasn't ate since we added him on saturday. I think he needs to eat live since he wasn't fully on frozen before leaving the store. But afraid live will destroy our nitrate level.

Thanks for the help!!!
Hi! Being a newbie as well (4 months in), I'm going to share with you, what I've learned with OUR panther grouper: first of all, they are pretty hardy fish and laying on there side appears to be normal-our Floyd does that as well (aside from 2 turbo snails, he's the only fish in there.) We have him in a 20g (we are upgrading him shortly) and our nitrates are high as well: the idea is: a smaller tank is not as BIG as a bigger tank, therefore his waste (and you have other fish as well) will be more pronounced in a smaller tank.And its the waste that's registering the higher niTRATES. Makes sense, yes? Just yesterday I decided to fill our 5 g bucket with our regular tap water (which is what we use) and using API master test kit-all our levels were spot on: niTRATES @ 10-20ppm.So, for us, it's some transformation in the tank-gotta be the waste! By the way, panthers do all kinds of neat things: pretending to be a flounder is 1 of them!
So, bigger tank might be in order for you as well, considering ALL the tank-mates you have!

 

[sld7530]

Thanks for the info!! I was getting worried about him on his side!! And I'm beginning to agree on the bigger tank. Although our nitrates have never been low from the start. We did another water change(with perfect water) and it did not help even a bit. The protein skimmer hasn't helped either. We just asked about buying a 75 and starting with ro/di water and going from there in a new tank and hoping that helps. For now all the fish seem to be doing alright(knock on wood!) and hopefully we can get a bigger tank very soon.
Thanks everyone!!