Nitrate's

[Thumper]

My nitrates are at 15 and I want to add some corals pretty soon. I have been doing a 10% water change every third week and have just recently went to a 15% a week but the no3 hasnt changed, I cut back on feeding and all other water conditions are great. Any ideas ???

 

[seaham358]

How old is the tank, what size, how much LR and are you using Crushed coral or sand? What type of filtration if any, wet/dry, sump, hang on back filter. Do you have a skimmer and is it working... Have you tested your water before you add it to the tank? There could be NO3 in your water......

 

[Thumper]

The tank is around 5-6 months old 150 gallon, running a skimmer and it is working. 100 pounds of live rock, rodi water, 4.5" inch dsb.
My no3 was 0 when i started the tank. I have a small-med blue tang,small yellow tang, sailfin, and a small clown.
I only have around 6 hermits and 4 snails. I was wondering if this could be part of the problem. My tank is algae free for the most part and like I said everything else is perfect.

 

[fishman]

I would say since you have a skimmer (and its producing) and the amt of LR you have, I would think you are maybe overfeeding. Do you feed a lot? I dont think snails hermits have anything to do with it.

 

[phishead]

You might want to have it tested at your LFS. Your test kit may not be reading correctly. Mine always reads 0 which isn't terrible, but I don't believe it. Specially if you do not have any algea. I just added 10 lbs of lr, algea is everywhere, but it reads zero. 8)

 

[lando]

Over feeding may be an issue. What is your schedule? Also, if you are relying on your LR to help with biofiltration you are a bit on the low end. To really see biofiltration benifits of the LR you need 200-300lbs. What else are you using for filtration?

 

[JamesR]

Any chance you can setup a refugium (even a small one)? That would certainly be a good solution and keep your nitrates down consistantly, which will help keep the corals .

Here's a pic of mine, it's small but effective!

Jim

 

[Thumper]

This is all the filtration i have. I'm going to be adding another 150lbs or so of lr here pretty soon. The lfs showed me their tanks were between 15-20 and said it would be fine but everything I have read showed between 5-10. I want to do it right and not harm any corals. I checked today and it may have dropped just a little bit but still a little on the high side from what I know.

 

[Salttanker]

What are you feeding your fish? Sometimes the frozen foods can elevate nitrates. I try switching to flakes every other day to help control it better. 15-20 is acceptable for FO, but it may be on the high side for corals. Just a thought.

Mike

 

[c0mf0rt]

I've had problems with nitrates in the past... I know that mine hovered around that for a while.... I had no problems with my corals.... I would recommend finding xenia and maybe adding macros for some nutrient export... that helped me alot... I also had a kit that was reading too high.... try a different brand see what you get.....

 

[cmor1701d]

I find that my SeaChem kit reads 50+ for NItrates when my Salifert kit reads between 10 and 25. I wish they made an inexpensive (<$100), calibrated meter for NO2/NO3

 

[Thumper]

I have been feeding frozen but I have cut way back. Checked them this morning and they have dropped to closer to 10. I think I may have been overfeeding but the fish are swimming around a lot more looking for food. I hope it's not to bad on them.

 

[lando]

This is a bit consussing so hopefully some of they more "chemically" minded poeple can chim in here. I was struggling with this topic as well and Darin from captivereefs helped me out. Your reading of "50" in the nitrate category is a reading in ppm. While I believe the desired outcome label is mg/L. To convert your ppm nitrate to mg/L all you do is divide by 4.4. So, 50ppm of nitrate will give you 11.36mg/L of nitrogen. This came right from the SeaChem Marine Basic kit ibstructions..."Nitrate is relatively non-toxic, but it is advantageous to control it to under 20mg/L."
So asically by converting your nitrate reading from ppm to mg/L, things do do look as bad. I was concerned once because my nitrates where 10pmm. Turns out they were really onely 2.3mg/L after conversion. I really hope someone can elaborate on this for me...Lando

 

[RMPD109]

I am also having a problem with nitrates so I checked my kit after reading your post. It says the ppm andmg/l are equel up to 160 ppm. The difference of the 4.4 times is between nitrate ion(total nitrate) and nitrate-nitrogen. The nitrate-nitrogen will be 4.4 times less than the total nitrate.

So after all this info from my test kit what does this mean? Should we be looking at total nitrate or just the nitrate nitrogen?

My test reads in total nitrate and I get readings of 40 ppm(just got a fuge to help). If I only need to be concerned with nitrate-nitrogen I am under 10 which is not as big of a concern.

I am confused. Sorry for the long post and not trying to hijack the thread just trying to figure it out for all of us that are confused.

 

[lando]

great question...I will be awaiting an explaination as well.

 

[RMPD109]

I guess I should have kept reading it states that a reading of 40 ppm or under is recommended(for freshwater) and as close to 0 is desireable(for saltwater). I still am interested in everyones opinion here.

 

[cmor1701d]

All i can add is that my Seachem used to give me a near 0 reading on nitrates, usually around the 5-10 mark (light pink). Now it is near the other end of the scale but not beyond as it had been . This is after several 20% water changes, cutting feeding back to 1x every 2 days.

Wiaitng to hear more...

 

[steve-s]

So after all this info from my test kit what does this mean? Should we be looking at total nitrate or just the nitrate nitrogen?

You want to measure the total nitrate (ion). The Salifert website also notes that any presence of Amines in the water will skew the results of various manufacturers.

Seachem uses a "reference sample" to guage accuracey with their tests (one reason I dislike them) but I did note this from their website. Don't know if it's relevant to anyone here....

Q: The nitrate reading on my kit is reading too low. I checked the reference and it looks lower than it should be?
A: There was an unfortunate typo on several batches of the Nitrate instructions in which the reference was listed as 1 mg/L; it is actually 10 mg/L (which actually makes your problem even more pronounced!). However, if you do the two following two things your test should read the reference correctly (a) use 2 full stems of sample instead of 1 and (b) vigorously shake, squeeze and tap on a table the Nitrate Reagent#2 so that you obtain a very distinctly grey drop. Assuming you get a correct reading with the reference, you can now run your test samples in the same manner and be assured of the test's accuracy. If have followed the above instructions yet you still get too low a reading for the reference, then contact us to obtain replacement reagents.

Cheers
Steve

 

[monkeyman]

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[monkeyman]

how long ago did you add the Live rock? if it wasn't cured right it my cause your levels to rise.