Looks are Deceiving..Help.!

[bckane]

Tanks looks great fish are doing fine...but for one thing. Water test off the charts......Been doing my normal water changes each week %5, skimmer seems to be working fine (lite brown) running carbon in my canister change about every 3 weeks.....good water movement with wave maker 2 1200's and 1 600 maxijet. Tanks been up and running for about 18 months. This is my error I haven't did a water test in several months because everything looks great...here is all my livestock and water results
BTW I'm feeding my tank every otherday with cyclopeeze and krill

Live stock:
2 clown's
2 Banded coral shrimp

1 fighting conch
5 bumble bee snails
8 nassarius snails
8 trochus ssails
4 red leg scarlet reef hermits
3 pencil urchin (LR-hitchhikers)

Water Testing:
pH 7.8
Salinity 1.024
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrate 0
Nitrates 80
Alkalinity 110
Calcium 500...(don't know how got so high don't dose)

BTW I did a test with my test kit on another tank (friend) and got all good reading.
also did a test on my mixed storage water and all ok. I'm using RO/DI with new filter changed every 8 months (0ppm)

Please help pulling my hair out going to do a 50% water change this week

TIA
Brian..(not a happy camper)

 

[LittlePuff]

I'd do 25% this week, then 10% (every week) from then on. Scheduled water changes are the most inportant thing you can do for water quality, then skimmer (which you already have)

Did you add something to your tank recently? Your ammonia should be zero.


Kim

 

[bckane]

No I havent added anything.....The only thing new to the tank was new PC lights....dont know how the calcium got so high...and the nitirates are off the chart
I took the carbon out lastnight and added Seachem Purigen.....So you dont think I should do a 50% water change and go from there.?

 

[i have crabs]

over feeding mabey or feeding brine shrimp will do it 2 clowns should get mabey a 1/4 of a cube a day or every 2 days the rest mabey some small pellets like formula 1 and not every day
krill is too big for a clown and too much for the rest and cyclopeeze is probably too small and plouting the heck out of your tank
as far as your water do a change wait a day and do another add some prime if you have some it will detoxify the nitrates/amonia so its not so harmfull untill you get it down

 

[LittlePuff]

You need to vary their diet a little.

Kim

 

[bckane]

over feeding mabey or feeding brine shrimp will do it 2 clowns should get mabey a 1/4 of a cube a day or every 2 days the rest mabey some small pellets like formula 1 and not every day
krill is too big for a clown and too much for the rest and cyclopeeze is probably too small and plouting the heck out of your tank
as far as your water do a change wait a day and do another add some prime if you have some it will detoxify the nitrates/amonia so its not so harmfull untill you get it down

Ok the krill is for the banded shrimp...the clowns dont even look at it, you maybe right on the cyclopeeze it is very fine it may be getting down in the rock work and plouting the tank...Im going to do a water change today and pickup a bottle of Seachem Prime....also going to pickup some formula 1....one other thing I may have been doing wrong is not shutting down the powerheads....I have a lot of movment in my tank with the wavemaker with the powerhead mod....I hope this helps
Thanks for the information