Serious Nitrate Issues!

[EvilTwin]

I have been trying to combat a serious rise in Nitrates over the past two days. I have only one thought of what may have caused it, but need some advice. Two days ago I started seeing elevated Nitrates, maybe 10-15. Yesterday that number had climbed to 20 so I did a 10g water change. I currently have about 90g of water volume between sump and tank. Tested again but saw no change. This evening I test again and the number has skyrocketed to 80! The one thing I can think of that may be causing this is I had a snail die on me the other day. Before I even knew it, my cleanup crew had it out of the shell and was picking every scrap clean that they could find. Could this be the reason for the extra bioload? I see no increase in ammonia or nitrites. I changed another 5g today and need to check levels again. I have tested my new water and it is zero on the nitrates. Anyone have any ideas here? All of my other water parameters are acceptable, just too much Nitrate. Until now I never had a nitrate reading higher than 5. This tank has been setup since February after migrating from another tank. I have been fighting a cyano problem for a while. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

 

[movinweight]

I am in the same boat right now...just not as bad...my nitrate levels are around 15-20 on my 46 gal bowfront. It has been set up for about three months and had fully cycled around 3-4 weeks....all my water parameters looked good but nitrates have steadily been on the rise....I tested my water supply and am at a 0. PWC every week and helps drop it about 5ppm, but keeps rising....any suggestions?

 

[EvilTwin]

I rechecked the level just now and while it appears to be lower than before, it is still between 40 and 80. That's all the test kit reads. Such a huge range. I suppose I'm doing 5g water changes every day until it comes down to an acceptable level.

 

[movinweight]

Thats my plan as well...had a 30 gallon batch of saltwater brewing the past three days. 10 gal PWC's a day until they are down...gotta love those nitrates....they are not as bad for the fish, but any inverts and corals will suffer in the long run...I have been lucky so far. Good luck to you!

 

[dianeww]

I suppose I'm doing 5g water changes every day

You're not changing enough at a time. Five gal. is barely over 5% of 90 gal. I think you should be doing more like 20 g. at a time (a little over 20%) That's what I change in my 75 (over 15 g. each time). It'll take forvever for the nitrates to drop with such small changes.

 

[i have crabs]

i agree start doing 20-25g changes untill its under control,i highly doubt a snail is any of the cause but it could be a million other things

 

[MarineFlake]

Change or remove any filter media. Filters harbor trash like no ones business. I learned this the hard way...If its been in there a month, it needs changed or removed. I also agree with the volume of water changes being far too low.

Peace.

 

[ianrich147]

movinweight your problem could be related to you biowheel if your using the filter pads filterpads are good at their job thay collect wast and since your clean up crew cant get to it its converted into nitrate

p.s. youll get better ansers if you fill out your myinfo things like lighting filters skimmers lr ls fish inverts the more the better

 

[ianrich147]

i forgot probably not the dead snail not if your clean up crew picked it apart i lose a snail once in a while (stupid conehead snails) with no change

 

[EvilTwin]

I have no mechanical filter media in my tank. I have run a canister in the past but removed it completely since I added my sump. I have about 90 lbs of fiji LR and 3-4 inches of aragonite substrate. Last time I did a large (20g) water change, I had some bad things happen in my tank, so I'm a little gunshy about doing it. I guess I'll need to make extra sure that the new water parameters match. That may have been my problem last time.

 

[tecwzrd]

Last time I did a large (20g) water change, I had some bad things happen in my tank, so I'm a little gunshy about doing it. I guess I'll need to make extra sure that the new water parameters match. That may have been my problem last time.

Matching ph/sg/temp is very important when doing pwc and any radical change or if you didn’t mix it for at least 12+ hours and preferably 24+ hours can cause a ton of stress to your livestock. If in doubt about matching ph/sg then I’d recommend a slightly lower sg versus a higher one. How do you mix it now and do you use a ph?

I’ve had 4+ snails die at one time causing a spike in no3 but not just one snail (unless it was one of those HUGE ones)

I’m more curious at what kind of stock fish/invert wise and what, how often, & how much do you feed your stock.

You must have at least a pre-filter for your sump to keep junk out of it. How often do you rinse that?

 

[ianrich147]

your test might be bad have you verified its corect

 

[Feron]

I say this tongue in cheek (hopefully your situation improves with the advice given already), but the other day at the LFS while perusing some frags, a guy comes in and gets his water checked... nitrates at about 800... so it could always be worse

 

[EvilTwin]

I suppose it could be worse. Do they really make a test that goes that high? I can't imagine anything living in water with that much nitrate in it. Was his fish still alive?

I am preparing to do a large water change, in line with the method used to quickly reduce nitrates. It is currently my plan to do a 50% WC. I am currently making the water for doing this. I would reallylike to do even more but I don't have a container large enough to hold and mix the makeup water.

 

[Feron]

They had something there that was accurate at high levels.. had to do the test several times.. basically off the scale I spose... the guy was doing huge water changes every few days too.. pretty much have to figure he had something seriously wrong, but yes, his fish were alive (no doubt due to the large influx of freshly prep'd water I guess).

I can't imagine how much could be alive, but that was the story

As for your WC, it sounds like a good idea.. do as big of one as you can and prep another for a few days down the road.. like maybe half of what you do the first time.. then keep stepping it down every few days until things remain stable, and keep a decent schedule of changes.

I pretty much change 10-20% in each of my 90g tanks every other week (have 2 tanks), and so far things remain in good balance even tho events arise (my skimmer in one recently started not working, fixed it after about a week..

 

[AMANIQU77]

Clean your filtration system. Blow off detrius from the lr surfaces. If you can, siphon your substrate really well on the surface.

Change 20G pre-made, temperature adjusted, pH and salinity calibrated water...preferably pre-made more than 24 hours ago and properly aerated.

Do that 20G water change twice a week until you pretty much changed all the water in your tank. However, allow anywhere between 3 - 4 days in between water changes.

If your nitrates are still hovering in the 20s, use AZ NO3.

PS: If you can increase your powerheads, you might want to do that.

 

[EvilTwin]

Well, I am probably NEVER going to do another large water change ever again! After preparing 40g of water, in advance, matching PH, salinity, SG I did a large 40g water change last night. I did such a large change after reading so much about it. I woke up this morning and mmy turbo snails and two turtle conchs are all dead. But what is really worse is that for the past month or so I have been enjoying watching what amounts to literally a hundred or more baby trochus snails crawl around my tank and continue to thrive. Every single one was dead. I could not find a single surviving specimen. Fortunately, my fish seem ok, my BTAs appear ok and my corals, while they weren't opened up yet, also look allright. I'll know more later. Frankly, I am at a loss, and really disappointed right now.

 

[roka64]

matching PH, salinity, SG

What about temp?

I would check for ammonia after all those deaths.

 

[EvilTwin]

matching PH, salinity, SG

What about temp?

I would check for ammonia after all those deaths.

Temp was dead on as well. Frankly, I don't understand it. I hate this hobby sometimes. It's very depressing. Whenever I have problems in my tank, things still seem to do OK. Then I screw with it and try to make it better and it only seems to get worse.

 

[MarineFlake]

I have scanned over this whole thread again. You need to take your water somewhere and get it tested. I would look for high silicates or some copper or other metal that does not belong there. Take it to a LFS if they offer the service to get an impartial battery of tests. Be interesting to post them all. Water changing, done properly, should not kill anything. Big changes in something that is way off to begin with will kill stock and it everything you post seems to lean more toward something either in your source water (Maybe being introduced by something your mixing with) or in your tank your not sharing with us. Be interesting to see your test results and maybe post a pic of your tank including all the equipment.

Peace.