High Nitrates.... help?

[clearsky57]

I noticed my tank having a bit of an algae problem recently, and when I did my tests, I noticed the Nitrates were higher than normal... (160 ppm on the ati test kit)

used a test strip and it pretty much confirmed it....

 

I did about a 35% water change and retested next day and it is about 80 now... My skimmer seems to be working ok... any thing else I can do???

 

I plan on doing another water change in a few days, but other than the water changes is there anything else I can do to help the problem...

 

ph, salinity, temps, everything else seems ok...

 

any ideas would be greatfully accepted

thanks

[epleeds]

Question is how much are you feeding? And what food are u feeding.

[treesprite]

I once put my hands in the tank without washing them off and it threw my nitrate sky high. I think a lot of mystery nitrate and phosphate risings are caused by unwashed hands.

[Tink]

Personally I say look into an ATS (algae scrubber), cause those suckers work. Been skimmerless for months, and no algae in the display.

[mling]

I am fighting a high Nitrate problem too. I just bought 10 mangroves from BRK last weekend.

Do you folks think that is enough for a 156 + 44 setup ?

How long does it take before you get to see the effects of adding mangroves ?

 

Thinking of adding cheato next. Does any one living near Centreville have excess cheato they need to get rid of ?

[Steve175]

Mangroves are cool (I have a mangrove tank attached) but do very little in the way of nitrate export: they grow too slowly. I would start growing chaeto ASAP (and do regular water changes, and feed less, and skim better, etc.)

[OldReefer]

Mangroves are cool (I have a mangrove tank attached) but do very little in the way of nitrate export: they grow too slowly. I would start growing chaeto ASAP (and do regular water changes, and feed less, and skim better, etc.)

 

 

+ 1

 

Mangroves are a nice addition, but chaeto with intense lighting and flow is amazing. I throw 3 gallons of the stuff out every other week. That is a lot of nutrient export in addition to a big skimmer, pellets, carbon, and BRS HC ferric Oxide.

[clearsky57]

Question is how much are you feeding? And what food are u feeding.

 

 

Interesting that you offered this question....... I really do think I have been overfeeding, and know better as I work with a lot of fresh water tanks that are small (2 1/2 gal up to 15 gal breeder or species tanks) and I know better than to overfeed, even with live food, without very regular water changes.

 

I have been feeding the following: live brine shrimp, frozen mysis, frozen bs, frozen cyclopeze... of course not all at the same time... i also will cut up shrimp, scallop or silversides to target feed my anenomes, duncans and such...

 

I think I have been dancing this fine line where I want everything to be fat and healthy, but maybe overdoing it without watching my chemical parameters, and thinking the protein skimmer would do all the work..

 

so..... i have cut back on the feeding... (don't think my pudgy fish will mind too much )

as stated, the first major water change dropped the nitrates significantly, (almost by half) but think I need to wait about 4-6 days inbetween changes, right??

 

my interpretation on using mangroves is that they do not do a significant amount of nitrate diffusion, without a larger scale, so don't think that would be the way for me to go,,,

however

 

I do have some chaeto in my fuge, but.... it has not really grown since I put it in... my immediate thought is that it isn't doing what is is supposed to do, so why might it not be really growing? there is moderate flow in there as I do bypass some of the tank water into the middle chamber on my fuge (where I have bioballs) as my understanding was i needed good flow over the bio balls as well....

 

i have a clip on relfector with a led screw in bulb over the first chamber of the fuge (where the chaeto is) about a 3" sand bed with some live rock in there, a pretty good culture of pods, and have a yellow watchman goby and one or two sexy shrimp living in there.

I did have a regular screw in bulb on there, but noticed a bit of brown/red algae on the front of it so i increased my lighting to the led and a couple more hours per day (actually comes on in the evening after the main lights go out for about 8 hours)

I do have a type of vegetation, sort of vallisneria like plant that attaches to the rock and has a short stem, then long leave, (about 8")

it seems to be growing and in fact has grown more since the light change,

 

So do we think the reduction in feeding and more frequent water changes will alleviate my issues??

[mling]

... i also will cut up shrimp, scallop or silversides to target feed my anenomes, duncans and such...

 

 

If it helps, I do not feed my anenomes at all and they are doing fine -> I started with one and now have over 10 from it spliting. I do have a clowns that host with the anenomes i.e. they are kown to bring food to their anenomes.

[clearsky57]

I have resigned myself to the fact that I overfed everything, and need to cut way back....

I suppose I will cut back on feeding the anenomes and duncans too...

after I do one or two more water changes, I will see where my parameters are..

thanks all for your input

[angel not fish]

Get a turkey blaster or power head and clean the rocks.

If do you have a RR compartment, detach it so all the dirt goes to sump.

Detach your return pump and take the water out off the sump (with the return pump).

Check your fuge, shake your chaeto.

After all been clean, add a nitrate reducer from instant ocean ( you find at petco) to give a boost in your bacterias.