Nitrate Problems

[beachbumtx]

HIya!,
I tell you what, the Saltwater Master Kit from Red Sea sucks! Its been telling me my water quality is fine...wrong. My nitrates were off the chart. I noticed some of my fish were strange looking. My purple wrasse went missing and still is. I decided to take some water to work andf test it ith their kits and found that my nitrate were high.
Strange thing is that I do monthly water changes and feed sparingly. I had a lot of culerpa in the tank, but itwas trimmed back by the tang. I only have 5 fish in a 55gal.
Any comments as to why my nitrates got so high?

 

[johnnysalt]

is this a new tank?
how big are your 5 fish?
your monthly water change: how many gallons?
(also, you really need to find the fish...if he's dead, but hasn't been eaten yet, get him out!)
John

 

[beachbumtx]

HIya!,
The tank is 4 to 5 months old. All fish are 3 inches or fish with the exception of the tang. He is about 5 inches. THe missing fish is a wrasse and they are known to burry themselves, so wishful thinking hoping he is still alive. We had a yellow coris wrasse go missing for several days in one of our tanks at work. We tried to sift through the sand looking for him and nada. Eventually he came out for us to see that he was still in there.
I do plan to break down the tank on Friday and store everything short time to do some work on the tank. If he doesn't show up by then, I will hopefully find him when I do that.

 

[beachbumtx]

Water change is 7 to 10 gallons.

 

[jja]

When I had my 55 I did a 10% change every 10 days to 2 weeks. I would deffinitely do more than 7 gallons once a month. That should solve your problem. Anything else in the tank other than the fish?

 

[beachbumtx]

Originally posted by jja
When I had my 55 I did a 10% change every 10 days to 2 weeks. I would deffinitely do more than 7 gallons once a month. That should solve your problem. Anything else in the tank other than the fish?
Hiya!,
I have some soft corals and some hard coral frags. Inverts I have include snails, hermits, and a sand sifter starfish. Only thing affected other than fish is the Encrusting Gagornia (SP?). He doesn't come out very much right now. All other corals are doing well.

 

[dad]

Couldn,t sleep so i popped in,

What are your readings? Do you have a cleanup crew? If so; I would not worry about the missing fish at this point.
If not; you need one.
If your readings are really high; Plan on doing a large water change or two to get them down.
And yes; You need to do more water changes everyweek if not daily.
There are too many varibles why you have high nitrates but with water changes(with RO water) you can get them down and start from there.
HTH

 

[nm reef]

Before I did anything drastic I'd try to determine the source of the nitrates. What do you use for filtration? Any mechanical filters? What do you feed and how often? What is your water source? What exactly are the current nitrte levels? Elevated nitrates can normally be traced to a source or combination of sources and I'd look at control of the source along with means of reduction such as regular small percentage water changes and adequate biological filtration to convert the nitrates to nitrogen. Your problem may be a lack of biological filtration and more bio-load than your filtration can handle...but thats only a guess on my part.

 

[beachbumtx]

Hiya!,
Amonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
pH - 8.0 (I did have a pH spike last week that was above 9.0 due to the kalk, but since haulted that until I get the sump/protien skimmer up and going which will be saturday)
Nitrate - Was at the highest reading, has since come down to the kiddle reading due to water changes. I am at school so I can't see the chart to let you know numbers.
Calcium - 500
NMReefer, I am running a AquaClear backpack filter that will work for up to a 70gal tank. I also have a Eniehm (SP?) powerhead that has 3 caparments with filters in it as well.
I was using the RedSea saltwater master kit for testing, but since the wrasse went missing, now the tang has died (removed from tank) on Sunday, I knew there had to be a problem. On Monday I took a sample of the water to work and the Hagens tests showed my nitrates to be high. I had been doing daily water changes since to get them lower. I did 7 gallons Monday, 15 gallons on Tuesday, and 7 gallons last night. I will probably do 7 more tonight and a big change tomorrow when I break down the tank to prep it for drilling.
On Saturday I will get it drilled and connect the sump, refugium, and protien skimmer to it. It will have an additional 30 gallons of new saltwater. I plan to add BioSpiro to jump start bacterial on the bioballs.
All my water used comes from work and it is RODI water that I add salt to it at home. The tank has about 75 to 100 pounds of live rock in it. It has about a 3 inch layer of aragonite sand. It had a heathly amount of culerpa in it until the tang start eating it. There is still some, but a considerable amount less.
To add about the backpack filter, it have the filter sponge in it plus several small pieces of live rocks that I place in there. I looked in there the other night and there are a lot of amphopods in there.
NMReef, there were never more than 5 fish in there at a time. All were 3 inches or less with the exception of the tang. He was close to 5 inches. I have one giant red hermit crab, a red leg hermit, a blue leg hermit, 3 large turbo snails, 5 smaller snails, some cap snails that came in with the live rock, and a sandsifting starfish. Is that too much bio load for a 55 gal?

 

[beachbumtx]

Correction on the test kits that I am now using. Not Hagen (don't recall where that came from), but they are th tetra test kit.
beaslbob, I started doing daily water changes when I realized my nitrates were high. I did have a lot of culerpa. I removed half of it when it started to overgrow the tank. A few weeks later, I got a tang, and it made short work of what was left. One of the reason of the refugium is to have a seperate tank apart of the system so that the fih will not eat the refugium.
Question, should I stay with culerpa or should I go with red mangroves? Or both?
Now that I am at home, here are the nitrate readings. When I first notice the problem - 100mg/l. What they were after this last water change - 25mg/l.

 

[bang guy]

Beachbum - Try switching to Chaetomorpha. It's ideal for refugiums IMO

 

[new_noob]

I would use Chaetomorpha and red mangroves, mangroves take out so much organic waste, after time they will make your skimmer obsolet. and they also look very cool. I have sence took mine out because it was only pulling out 1/4 cup(or less) of skimmate a week. so now i use the pump as another powerhead. But if you are going to get Mangroves you have to limmit thier root system space, i put my two in very large shells(softball size) that i got from my LFS, that limits their space without limiting their growth.

 

[beachbumtx]

Update, Nitrates down to 12.5 mg/l. I found the purple wrasse when I tore down the tank. However, not where I thought I would. Aparently he jumped out of the tank, fell behind the stand, and then wiggled underneath the stand and out of view.
I can get mangrooves from work. However, I can not get Chaetomorpha there. We are the only LFS in town, so I can not buy it locally. Any online places?

 

[beachbumtx]

Originally posted by beaslbob
you could try a google and/or search for saltewater plants or macro algae. Locals at your location may be tossing some each month. if you need more info beaslbob@aol.com
Thanks

 

[new_noob]

also try and type in "Macro Algae" you'll find many species to chose from, and its cheaper them buying it from a store, it may also come with pods/stars/shrimp/worms. I ordered some from a guy and it came with like 20 pods, 12 Mysid shrimp, a few worms, but no stars