NitrAtes drop during cycle and cure?

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dmolavi

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I am 2 weeks into a BRS dry rock cure and cycle, and my nitrAtes have dropped off to only about 5ppm after spending a week off the charts. I expect this with nitrites, but have never seen the nitrAtes drop without a water change.

The only thing I did recently was to add Matrix Carbon by SeaChem to the flow to cut on the stink. That shouldn't have triggered a nitrAte drop though...

Anyone ever seen this or know how it could happen? I am running with a live sand bed and BioSpira during the cure and cycle...
 
a jumbo cocktail shrimp.

I tested tonight...ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate about the same as before. I dosed with plain ammonia and will take another test tomorrow night.
 
Ever have that sinking feeling you f'ed up somewhere along the way...yeah, I woke up with that feeling this morning. My tank is 20 gallons, with about 15 gallons of water in it, the rest of the volume is rock and live sand.

I sat down and dug up some old high school chemistry out of my brain, and figured I needed to dose 5 teaspoons (about 25mL) of ammonia to get to about 5ppm in the tank. Did I way overdose the tank? Will it do anything to the BB that are in there, or just give them a few days worth of food for them to chomp away at?
 
Oops. Off by a factor of 10. For a 60 L water volume you wanted 0.24 mL pure ammonia or 2.4 mL of a 10% solution. 1/2 a tsp

You could be looking at a 40 ppm level right now. If there is nothing in a CUC or other life, your BB may start, as it is food they're sitting in (amm is not poisonous to BB). Personally I'd wait and see if it gets consumed. If your nitrites climb you should be good.
 
Yeah, I realized that when I got into work and re-did the numbers this morning. I had loads of BB in the tank to start (live sand plus BioSpira), and this is over 2 weeks in, so hopefully they will happily chew away at this.
 
Thanks :) Everything that can be crossed is crossed...(The eyes are really tough, though, and I'm getting a helluva headache ;-) )
 
OK, so today was a stressful day at work, not knowing what I would come home to. Good news: the nitrites are back up, and the ammonia is still high, but definitely not as high as it was this morning. I'm willing to bet that by the end of the week, it will be back to zero. I hope this is the worst mistake I make on my tanks :)
 
On another note, and in answer to my own question, bacteria can convert the nitrAte to nitrogen gas deep inside live rock.
 
Nitrites are up, nitrates are still really low, so I am guessing the little buggers are working on the trites now.

I am relieved I didn't kill the tank with the accidental OD.

Should I do another (correct) ammo dose for the BB to feed on? The cocktail shrimp is about done decomposing.
 
Dose to 4ppm every time it goes to zero. When it processes the 4ppm to 0 nitrItes and high nitrAtes in 24 hours you are done.
 
Thanks. I just dosed with 1/2tsp of ammo. I'll start keeping track daily. Of course I'm going out of town next week. I might have my wife just dose daily and I will check it when I get home.
 
Hoorraaaay! It's processing it all to 0 in less than 24hrs. I'm heading out of town this week, so first fish in a week or two.
 
Dose to 4ppm every time it goes to zero. When it processes the 4ppm to 0 nitrItes and high nitrAtes in 24 hours you are done.

For a FOWLR tank the nitrAtes are fine being high, but not for a reef tank....so do I need to do an uber water change to get rid of the nitrAtes?
 
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