Nitrate levels

[fishfancy]

What's an acceptable level of nitrate?? This morning it was zero and this evening it is 20. My Ph level also jumped from 8.2 to 8.4. Have treated the tank with Amquel twice in the past two days. I had planned on doing a 10% water change over this weekend. Do I need to do it before that?? I have read that water changes help reduce the Nitrate levels.

 

[mikeyjer]

Originally Posted by fishfancy
What's an acceptable level of nitrate?? This morning it was zero and this evening it is 20. My Ph level also jumped from 8.2 to 8.4. Have treated the tank with Amquel twice in the past two days. I had planned on doing a 10% water change over this weekend. Do I need to do it before that?? I have read that water changes help reduce the Nitrate levels.
To really reduce nitrate, you need to do 20-25% water changes every other day. Test a day after water changes to check on your nitrate. :happyfish

 

[lion_crazz]

Yep, 10% water changes will not really do anything.
What do you have in your tank? Corals will not do well at that level usually, but fish will do just fine. Any higher and I would begin to worry however.

 

[fishfancy]

No coral, just LR and LS. I have four clowns, one flame hawk and one diamond back gobie. I am the silly person who did not do the smart thing and read up on starting a tank and placed too many new fish in a tank that had not cycle properly. Every day I run home from work to check on the fish. I have been testing this tank twice a day to keep up on any damage that might take place suddenly.

 

[lion_crazz]

Is the tank cycled now??

 

[fishfancy]

I wish I knew how to tell if it was. I am still to new at this to know.

 

[lion_crazz]

You would know if your ammonia and nitrite are 0 ppm.

 

[fishfancy]

They are at this point. I ran to another local LFS, not the one I purchased it from, and they sold me some Bio-Spira. I place it in the tank and the next day my ammonia went from .25 to Zero.

 

[lion_crazz]

Yep, Bio-Spira adds extra biological bacteria to your tank. I would do a 20% water change this weekend.

 

[fishfancy]

Thanks everyone. I will do the water change and will continue to read the postings to learn. I have also purchased two books on setting up LF and Reef tanks. I have been offered another 60gal tank from a friend and hope to make it a quarantine tank for newly arriving fish in the future. I will need to start that tank from scratch and will do the proper cycling this time.

 

[murph]

IMO in the long run the only way to maintain undetectable levels of nitrate is with the employment of a deep sand bed. This means a bed more than three inches somewhere in the system. Can be in sump/fuge or display itself.
Frequent water changes can keep levels down but will start adding up money wise in a short period of time. The use of macroalgae can help but are usually used in conjunction with a DSB in a fuge and the DSB is most likely the major contributing factor.
If no sump or fuge sand can be slowly added to the bed in the DT. Take a length of PVC pipe and thoroughly rinsed sand and slide it down through the PVC to increase the depth of the sand in small areas daily until a depth of at least three inches is reached. I would not bother moving any rock around to do this and just increase the depth of the bed around it.
After completing this process I bet you start seeing results in two to four weeks. Google deep sand bed for a wealth of info and application techniques.
It is also likely that since you cycled the tank with a heavy bio load that this is the source of your nitrates. The end result of the nitrogen cycle is nitrate. So in a way the appearance of nitrate in your tank is a good thing in this situation. It shows that the tank has cycled or is vary near completely cycled. Now its just a matter of finding an efficient way of exporting those nitrates.
If you have room to make the sixty gal tank a sump the increase in water volume will drop your nitrates vary quick. No need to cycle it just plumb it out add water and turn on the pump. This would also be a great place for your DSB. A five or six inch sand bed here would do wonders and not upset the aesthetics of your display tank. Just make sure there is plenty of flow across the top of the bed. It will also provide a place for easy top offs a skimmer compartment etc.
A large open sump with a high amount of surface agitation to get as much oxygen in the water as possible and the addition of a good skimmer will hopefully head off any future problems with cyano.