Decreasing NitrAtes after ammonia spike

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I thought I would start a new thread on this, because my ammonia problem seems to be solved. Originally I had added "cured" live rock, and my ammonia spiked and the fish got pretty lethargic. I got the fish out of the tank, and he is doing fine, now.

I did a water test today, and my parameters are: ammonia : ZERO, nitrites: ZERO, nitrates: 40. So my understanding is that the tank has been cycling, and I now need to decrease my nitrates. I have been reading a lot, and among other methods, it seems that doing PWC's can do this? Am I correct? Or do I let the tank just continue along its path and the nitrates will start to drop by being processed.

BTW I do have my protein skimmer running. I now have a total of 200 pounds of LR for my 125.

Now that I have almost completed my fishless RE-cycling, I am starting to decide what fish will go in. And now I have a quarantine tank to boot! I am thinking that I will go FOWLR for now.

Bruce

 

[neilanh]

PWCs is about the only way to get the nitrates down in your tank since it's so new, so yes, water changes are a good thing

 

[buddha_red]

do a 30-40% pwc and the nitrates will drop, my nitrates where giving me a huge number while i was cycling that slowly dropped with the other readings. I ended up with 20 nitrates and a pwc took care of that.

 

[melosu58]

I agree that frequent PWC`s will take care of your nitrates. As your tank gets more mature you`ll start to develope anerobic bacteria in your low flow areas that will take care of some of those nitrates.