Nitrate excess!

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

•    About the Club
•    MCMAC 2009
•    Constitution
•    Bylaws

[Guest]

Welcome, Guest.
Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Kylem]

Hi all,
I thought I was doing all the right things for my tank but no matter what I do or change I can't get rid of the nitrate level.  It alway goes to 20ppm even if I do large water changes.
I have completely remove almost all the gravel in my main tank.  It was collecting detrius and was not getting picked up in the water column.
My refugium is also collecting Detrius and everything is growing in it except the Chaeto algae.   I have a garbage can full of oolithic sand for my nitrate filter but it doesn't seem to be doing the job.
Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

[tyler5g]

Is it you nitrates or your NITRITES that you can't get below 20.  Nitrites need to be at zero, but nitrates at 20 should not be causing you any real troubles.  Getting nitrates to 0 is tough, you need a really efficient 'fuge to do that.

[The Apprentice]

Hi Kyle Hey did you ever get your rodi Unit able to get your Hi Nitrate well water down ?
This may be your biggest problem I would ask you to retest your Cleaned up  RoDI waster & test It For Nitrates especailly since you just did a water change...
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=206832#post206832

How big is the fish load in your tank?Feedings? Skimming?? How about a Redundant skimmer Run 2! I really have heard nothing but good things with guys running the "I have a garbage can full of oolithic sand for my nitrate filter"  I hope this will lead to something...?


And Like John said with your Nitrates Up at 20ppm  ITs ok for softies, LPS and some sps will do ok as well, Trust me  :shock:
So I think you still may have a bad water supply H.T.H....Jeff

Hi all,
I thought I was doing all the right things for my tank but no matter what I do or change I can't get rid of the nitrate level.  It alway goes to 20ppm even if I do large water changes.
I have completely remove almost all the gravel in my main tank.  It was collecting detrius and was not getting picked up in the water column.
My refugium is also collecting Detrius and everything is growing in it except the Chaeto algae.   I have a garbage can full of oolithic sand for my nitrate filter but it doesn't seem to be doing the job.
Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

[Les]

Kyle,
I would check what test kit you're using. Compare the nitrate test to some distilled water from the store and from the tap/rodi. This will at least give you a base line.

[Kylem]

Thanks for the reply guys.   My well water if fine now and my RO water is 0 nitrates.    I have two skimmers running and a garbage can nitrate filter as well as a refugium.   What is really strange is that my algae in the refugium doesn't seem to grow and I have never thinned it out because it has never amounted to much.   If I change the lighting all it does is change coloration.
The softies are doing fine for growth but the sps and lps are not.  They are barely hanging on.
I don't have much fish load but I could reduce the amount of fish.   I just wish I had a more effiecient setup.   I spend all this money on improving it but for not!

[tyler5g]

I feel for you man.  I am having some issues myself with the new tank.  Never before have I had green algae in a tank, but on this one, it seems to be an issue.  We need to just keep plugging along.

[angelscrx]

Take some water to another club member like Rick or Les and have them test your water.  How fast are you running water through the fuge?  My brillo pad algae here didn't grow at all until I added a fuge box to my sump and slowed the flow down.  Now it has started to grow and the brown diatom algae that was forming in there is going away.  I also placed the new fuge closer to my lights.  It is working great.

[Les]

Kyle,
One thing to keep in mind here is that your SPS may not grow much if any if you keep many softies in the same system. Softies fight other corals with poison and this affects/kills off SPS corals. Just because the SPS aren't growning well may not have anything to do with nitrates.

[Les]

Another thing that works well for keeping nitrates down is Xenia and also some clams. I have a loaner clam but it's out right now.

[The Apprentice]

Another direction Kyle :The softies are doing fine for growth but the sps and lps are not. They are barely hanging on. I agree with Les this is a very big Issue I had to remove all my softys from My Sps Tank Except for
Xenia which I use for the same reason. But lets look in this Direction When was the last time your tank was tested For Phosphates. To test this really well you will need to get a Salifert Phosphate Test Kit This is from Marine depots site and I have read time & time again in sps bboks and forum's "If phosphate is present in too high a concentration there may be  to much. If  phosphate level is higher than 0.04 mg/L the growth rate of corals and calcareous algae may decrease by as much as 90%."
Do you have a way to test this?
Would like to hear your results...Jeff

Thanks for the reply guys.   My well water if fine now and my RO water is 0 nitrates.    I have two skimmers running and a garbage can nitrate filter as well as a refugium.   What is really strange is that my algae in the refugium doesn't seem to grow and I have never thinned it out because it has never amounted to much.   If I change the lighting all it does is change coloration.
The softies are doing fine for growth but the sps and lps are not.  They are barely hanging on.
I don't have much fish load but I could reduce the amount of fish.   I just wish I had a more effiecient setup.   I spend all this money on improving it but for not!

[Kylem]

Okay, I tried slowing the water through the fuge and the Detrius builds up on the surface.   The Xenia I have in the fuge don't grow much like I had before and the Algae doesn't grow.  In fact all the Coraline Algae I had growing on the back of my tank etc is no longer there...it all died off.  In fact it has been dieing  off the rock; but at least I still have some.

I haven't tested the phosphates in a while.   I have a phosban reactor running but the media is low.   I changed it out today to put some nitrate absorbing media in the reactor instead.
Have you guys seen the new Denitrator using the Calcium reactor body with a media of Sulfur and some rock calcium carbonate to help with the calcium levels?

I will test my phosphates today and post it later.

[Kylem]

No Readable phosphates

[angelscrx]

How about posting all of your parameters?  If your coralline is dying then it sounds like a unbalance in chemicals somewhere, most likely alk and calcium.  Do you test for magnesium?

[Kylem]

No it is not that because I have been doing big and frequent water changes....at least once a week.  The salt has a buffer and sufficient chemicals.

[angelscrx]

Hmmmmm :?