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Nitrate Spike


MaeganWink

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So one of my classroom 55 tanks has had a Nitrate spike. At first I thought it might be the test kits, but I've used three separate pairs of test bottles and all gives high readings, so at this point it's probably the water. 

 

My biggest concern is determining why the spike happened. I've added no new organisms aside from one coral, none of the fish have died (I had a head count and all are accounted for), I've only added buffer and Prime to the water, and I even changed the filters. This first came up Friday (when I initially thought it was a testkit issue), but today is still presenting the readings even with additional kits. None of the fish or coral seem to be in distress...I plan to do a water change as soon as I can, but I obviously want to prevent this from happening. My two other tanks have had no issues.

 

Thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated! 

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When you say spike, what is the change in nitrate readings?

Being that it’s classroom tanks, I’m assuming you have either a canister or HOB powerfilter.  From the info provided, my first guess would be a loss in biological filtration and slight system off balance by changing the filter (or replacing all filter media).  

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Went from under 15 to as high as 60-80.

 

Each has an HOB powerfilter. I only changed the filters after I got the off readings, not before, so I I doubt that's it. Also, if that were the case, wouldn't it have affected the other two tanks? All three have the same HOB powerfilter on them. The other two are getting readings of less than 10.

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Are all tanks equally stocked (fish-wise) and have similar equipment?  The reason I ask is that I found even oversized power filters to be pretty inefficient at nutrient removal.  Just keep monitoring, I wouldn’t worry too much unless livestock start showing signs of stress or levels continue to rise.  I’ve kept both fish and softy tanks in the past with pretty high nitrates with no issues.

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Yes, they are all similarly stocked. I know the HOB filters aren't the best, but they're all I could manage to start, considering my school only gave me $250 to do all three tanks...I've gone well into my own pocket money at this point xD Grants are an option I'm working on for improving equipment, but it is what it is at the moment. 

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Yea I understand how it is as I’m married to a PG County teacher lol.  

 Aside from adding or upgrading equipment, the only other option I can see right now is increasing your maintenance frequency.  

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3 hours ago, MaeganWink said:

Yes, they are all similarly stocked. I know the HOB filters aren't the best, but they're all I could manage to start, considering my school only gave me $250 to do all three tanks...I've gone well into my own pocket money at this point xD Grants are an option I'm working on for improving equipment, but it is what it is at the moment. 

 

With HOBs it depends. I had a newly setup 20 Long turn green once.The water was so green that you could not see through to the other side. A HOB with carbon floss cleared it up in a day.

 

Also, a year ago I had bad nitrate spike and  I could not for the life of me find the source. Ran my finger on the inside of the freshwater reservoir and felt a slime. TDS showed 300 in the reservoir. Cleaned the reservoir out, refilled it, tested it to zero TDS and did water changes. Nitrates went away. 

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What’s in the filters? If it’s sponges could be just that you developed enough waste that it started trickling back into the tank.

Also, I imagine the tanks pretty young, don’t sweat it. Like the kids is just going through changes


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Yes, they are all similarly stocked. I know the HOB filters aren't the best, but they're all I could manage to start, considering my school only gave me $250 to do all three tanks...I've gone well into my own pocket money at this point xD Grants are an option I'm working on for improving equipment, but it is what it is at the moment. 
Have you checked with WAMAS to see if you qualify for grant money? There was mentioned of available funds at the last meeting. You should check with the officers for the details.
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I am working on grants, it's just there is redtape on my end (school has procedures I need to go through) to apply for grants, so I haven't completed any yet, including the one through WAMAS. But it's definitely on my list, especially for equipment, since WAMAS would actually understand the need, while other grants might go "but you already have equipment even if it's subpar" xD

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So the one tank in particular is still giving me problems. I'm still getting readings of about 80 with nitrates. All fish seem fine, though some of my corals seem unhappy. Last week I added purigen to all my filters, which helped the other tanks but didn't seem to make a difference for this one. I rearranged rocks looking for anything rotting, haven't seen anything. All fish are accounted for. I'm honestly at a loss for the source. Aside from a couple of small corals, I haven't increased the bioload from the past 4-5 months when everything has been fine.

 

Could excess algae cause a nitrate spike?

 

Not sure what else to do. I plan on doing a larger % water change once I get my R/O system in (should be any day now), but until then it's not feasible for me to go to the store to get that much water.

 

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

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Water changes are really the only way unless you have something in there that will accomplish denitrification through anaerobic ways or adding on a refugium.  If you have no means of exporting these currently (none of the typical mechanical or chemical means really do much for removal of nitrates) then water changes are the only thing that will get them down.  This is natural as our tanks are set up to remove ammonia and nitrite through biological processes but having anaerobic zones for denitrification isn't really that easy to accomplish in a typical tank.  Deep sand beds or denitrators will work as will a refugium with lots of macroalgae or some sort of carbon dosing but in your average reef aquarium you probably won't find all of these in play.

 

If you need some powerful skimmers and can handle some noise, let me know, I've got a storage unit full of equipment that I would be willing to donate to your school as I was one of the first in WAMAS to start tanks in schools and even created our school tank program along with the grant program years back.  Best to reach out directly if you want any equipment rather than listing it here and I can see what I've got that might fit your needs.  Not a huge selection but I do have a decent amount of stuff.

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