nitrates still high from yesterday's post

[keith gray]

OK- I went home last night and siphoned a lot of junk out of the bottom of my wet/dry system. When doing so I noticed the motor on my skimmer wasn't working so I am replacing it. Also, I took out about 1/4 of bioballs and replaced it with small pieces of live rock. And of course did a water change.
I plan on slowly replacing bioballs with small pieces of live rock. I have a friend who did this over a couple of weeks period and said it had really helped him.
I tested nitrates today at lunch and they do not appear to have come down yet.
Is this because it has not been enough time ?
When should I ate least see at little results from my labor ???!!!!

 

[louti]

How big of a water change did you do? Cleaning the junk out of the wet/dry will not lower the nitrates, it will only remove what is producing nitrates. The nitrates that are there will have to be diluted through water changes. If you want something to remove nitrates, look into adding a refugium with macro algae that will consume nitrate.

 

[keith gray]

Is that stuff they call Cheetos that looks kind of like grass.
I did about a 20% waterchange. I thought water changes helped reduce nitrates

 

[louti]

Yes, chaeto is a type of macro algae, caulerpa is another good one. A water change will remove nitrates. If your nitrates were 80 ppm yesterday and you changed 20% of the water, by the math you should be around 64 ppm (80-16). Depending on your test kit, it may be hard to distinguish that difference. Like I said, every time you do a water change, you'll dilute the nitrates more.

 

[xcali1985]

Chances are your substrate is producing nitrates also. If that much was in your bioballs theres probably some in your substrate, a light siphon of this should also help. very light though.