High nitrates and phosphates

stimpy4242

stimpy4242

Member
I am having trouble reducing my nitrate and phosphate levels. They are currently at 30 and 1.0 respectively. The tanks consists of:
55 gal tank
65lbs LR
1 - marroon clown
1 - blue damsel
1 - three stripe damsel
1 - LMB
1 - yellow tang
2 - cleaner shrimp
5 - emerald crabs
20 - blue leg
10 - snails
1 - BTA
The only things I have really added have been replacement shrimp since my wrasses decided to start eating them...he had left them alone for a while. Wrasse is gone and shrimp have been replaced a few times. I perform 20% water changes weekly. The only thing that I have done to treat is added some phosphate absorbant. Suggestions?
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
Are you using tap or RO water?
If it is RO water, what is the phosphate and nitrate level of the RO water before you put it in the tank?
 
matty0h_52

matty0h_52

Member
I would say that the high nitrates are due to the fact that your well over stocked for a 55g. And with only 65lbs of LR your more along the lines of 50g. Do you have a sump? What kind of skimmer? you do water changes? What kind of salt you useing? how often are these water changes? How mature is your tank? Any corals? You say your useing RO/ DI water but is that from a store or from your own filter. If its your own whats your TDS reading on the output? Have you tested the RO water? whens the last time you changed the phos media. and im assumeing your running that media in a reactor? Most importantly what kind of test kits are you useing!!
 
stimpy4242

stimpy4242

Member
answering questions in order...
1. No sump
2. No skimmer
3. 25% water changes weekly with RODI water
4. Red Sea Salt
5. See question 3
6. 6 months....receiving 120 shortly will be using this as the sump/fuge
7. No corals
8. My own 6 stage rodi system
9. TDS nearly 0
10. Yes see test results in post above yours
11. Change the phos media roughly every 2 weeks, since a reactor is something that water flows through...yes it is in a make shift reactor
12. Using red sea test kits, they are new
God i certainly hope you will have the exact answer after all those questions...please?
 
sou812

sou812

Member
Originally Posted by matty0h_52
I would say that the high nitrates are due to the fact that your well over stocked for a 55g. And with only 65lbs of LR your more along the lines of 50g. Do you have a sump? What kind of skimmer? you do water changes? What kind of salt you useing? how often are these water changes? How mature is your tank? Any corals? You say your useing RO/ DI water but is that from a store or from your own filter. If its your own whats your TDS reading on the output? Have you tested the RO water? whens the last time you changed the phos media. and im assumeing your running that media in a reactor? Most importantly what kind of test kits are you useing!!
how on earth is he overstocked?
 
sou812

sou812

Member
try doing 5 to 10% water changes while stiring yor sand do this every other day for a week then check levels to see if they r going down keep a log. Also do u have sand under your live rock if u do u will never be able to reduce the levels . all that diatrus is being traped under that rock. So on your new tank rock work first sand second. Make sure that as little of the rock touches the bottom as possable.
 
stanlalee

stanlalee

Active Member
tang might not be happy as it could be in a 55 but the bioload seems fine. two damsels, a clown, blenny and tang arent alot assuming they all arent giant. your clean up crew is crab excessive but again if they arent starving or killing each other I guess its not a problem.
two things come to mind a) feeding food and/or habits and b) skimmerless. you probably cant keep 5 emeralds and 20 hermits without generous feeding habits and I thought by now fish only tanks without skimmers would be like a new car with no air bags and drum brakes all around.
 
matty0h_52

matty0h_52

Member
Originally Posted by SOU812
how on earth is he overstocked?
Hes over stocked by the fact that he has no skimmer and no sump and no fuge. The only means of Nutri. export is his 20 or 25% water changes.
Allso i used to use red sea and i have now switched cause of the reports of high silicate in the mix (that and its just cruddie mix. there are deffinetly better ones out there).
i remember listening to a pod cast not to long ago and they talked about when your phos. get to a high level it will leach to all LR and LS. I think what may be happening with your phos. is that you let if get to high for too long now your only means is to remove it chemically. I would get another 1 or 2 phos reactors, and change out the media every week or 2. Fighting Phosphates is deffinetly a on going battle and it could last a long time.
Hows your feeding habbits? Have you tried double checking with another test kit?
 
ctgretzky9

ctgretzky9

Member
Your nitrates aren't horrible for not having a skimmer or sump. Phos seems a bit high though.
I hazard to guess you are using some kind of "media" filter? Do you shut it off during feeding (if you have one.)
Check to see if you are overfeeding as well, major cause of excess phos.
25% wc/week is fine.
Do not stir your sand up, it could release toxins from the anaerobic layers if you have that built up yet.
 
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