My Nitrates!!

joejoe

joejoe

Member
Hey you all I have a 38 gallon tank with a 3" sand bed and all looks well in it. All my corals and inverts are fine, but I don't know what's goin on with my nitrates!! My ammonia and nitrites are both at 0, pH at 8.2, sg at 1.025, and temp at 81. I have slowed the feeding to every other day for the past week but they nitrates are still pretty high. Can it be the kit I'm using? I am using Salifert. Also, can anyone recommend a different test brand for nitrates? Thanks!!
 
timg

timg

Member
How high?. Salifert brand is usuallt the best. If you think that your test kit is bad, takesome water to the lfs and have them test it.
 
joejoe

joejoe

Member
It's around 90ppm. I did a 10% water change on Tuesday but it's still up there. I think I'll take some water to test this evening.
 
timg

timg

Member
what type of filter, substrate, protein skimmer, and fishload do you have? How many PH's do you have? Hown muck LR?How old is the tank? Something is causing that jump, lets try and figure that out and fix it.
 
joejoe

joejoe

Member
I've got a CPR backpack protein skimmer and 2 powerheads. My substrate is a 3" sand bed and I also have around 70 lbs of LR in the tank. As for fish, no fish in there right now!! The tank is 5 months old. HTH!!
 
joejoe

joejoe

Member
Alright so I just got back from the LFS and the nitrates tested high there as well. The guy told me to vacuum my sand bed, do a 15 gallon water change tomorrow, then do another 15 gallon water change on Sunday or Monday. How does that sound??
 
zanemoseley

zanemoseley

Active Member
I don't see how your corals and inverts are doing ok with you nitrates at 90. Also if you vacuum sand its gonna suck the sand up so you'd lose a bunch of it. How many fish do you normally have in the tank, I don't see how it could get that high with a skimmer unless you feed a ton or have tons of fish.
 
joejoe

joejoe

Member
Yeah it's very odd.....everything in my tank is doing fine. I had one fish in the tank but last Saturday I gave him away so he wouldn't die from the nitrates. I'm thinking I might have been overfeeding the tank.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top