High nitrates in a new tank

[amarti2038]

Hello

First of all thanks for reading the post.

I have a new tank, a RedSea 250 G2 with Skimmer and ReefMat.

I have no experience with saltwater aquariums.

January 25th

I started the tank on January 25 of this year 2024.
I use dead marco rock ( https://www.theaquariumsolution.com/product/8232/345 ), about 46 Pounds (21Kg) and I use Carib Sea ARAG-ALIVE live sand, two bags of 20 Pounds each (9Kg per bag). And I added a starter kit quite famous around here of Microfauna and meiofauna eggs (seeded microfauna) and every day I'm dosing live aerobic and anaerobic seawater bacteria (Bactoreef), all from the company Daphbio. I also dose Red Sea Reef Energy Plus AB+ at 5ml per day. I use Tropic Marin Pro salt. I also have a bag of activated carbon in the sump.

I started as advised by my store with fish from day one and some corals.
I use Hanna tests for NO3 and KH. The rest with Salifert.

The parameters were the classic for a cycling, first ammonia peak, then N02 peak and then NO3 peak at 25 ppm in about 4 days.

16th of february
As it already had algae I added about 10 snails, two shrimps and two hermits.

After the N03 peak I did a water change of 40/50% and lowered them to 10ppm, the next day, due to a family problem I had to go on an "emergency" trip for a week. The aquarium stayed 6 days running with the skimmer, the reefmat and the automatic feeder.

February 25th
When I came back the NO3 PPM were at 75, I guess because of the excess of pellet food (4 turns per day with about 15-20 pellets per turn for two Ocellaris and one C. bispinosa).
The same day I did a water change by preheating it to 85% and lowered the N03 to 10ppm.
That day I turned off the automatic feeder and started to feed manually with the pump stopped and pellet by pellet (about 5 pellets per per day).

February 26th
I did another water change by preheating the water to 85% and lowered the N03 to 3 ppm.

March 2nd
I had the water at 15ppm of N03.
I did another 85% pre-warm water change and lowered the N03 to 4 ppm.

I added algae to the tank to see if it would lower the N03 and two gold Goby fish to clean the sand.

March 6th, today
NO3 is at 8ppm, my PPM is rising at 0.8ppm per day.

• Is it normal for my nitrates to go up so much every day?
• Is it because of the marco stone and the lack of bacteria?
• What do I do now? Recommendations?

Thanks for your help!
Albert

 

[TX_REEF]

First of all, welcome!

Pellets are very nutrient dense - I might recommend flakes for your auto feeder combined with a feeding ring (like this: https://amzn.to/48Dxvi5).

What exactly is a macro stone?

I'd recommend you do smaller water changes more often. 10% weekly is a great rule of thumb. Gradual change is always preferable to large, sudden changes (which a 50% water change can certainly cause). Look into sustainable methods of nutrient reduction, such as adding more corals, adding a macroalgae refugium, or adding an algae turf scrubber (I use an icecap drop-in-sump ATS, check pics below for my biweekly harvest https://amzn.to/49HQlWo)

 

[amarti2038]

What exactly is a macro stone?

I'd recommend you do smaller water changes more often. 10% weekly is a great rule of thumb. Gradual change is always preferable to large, sudden changes (which a 50% water change can certainly cause). Look into sustainable methods of nutrient reduction, such as adding more corals, adding a macroalgae refugium, or adding an algae turf scrubber (I use an icecap drop-in-sump ATS, check pics below for my biweekly harvest https://amzn.to/49HQlWo)

Thanks for your Tipps. I did a typo its marco rock from https://www.theaquariumsolution.com/product/8232/345

I know, normally I would use the 10% rule per week but I understood that after cycling big water changes can be used to bring down the Nitrates. I will try to adquire more corals.

 

[TX_REEF]

Got it. The rock will not affect nitrates.

 

[amarti2038]

Got it. The rock will not affect nitrates.

Hello

I have an acquaintance who sells me live rock.
Our aquarium has 55Gallons, and in the sump there is little space to put an algae grower, but if I could add about 20 pounds of small rocks near the ReefMat. In the end the bacteria in the stones and sand are those that convert NO3 into gas that leaves the tank, no? I think it's the best solution, I'm just afraid to bring some infection to my tank from the other one, which is a tank where a lot of corals pass through. Maybe by quarantining the rocks?
Do you think it can work? Do you know how to quarantine the rocks?

Thanks for your time and help!

 

[Barrett T]

When I first started my tank I had a huge problem with algae. Tried a ton of things to fix it (taking rocks out and cleaning them, water changes, H2O2 dosing, etc.) what ended up fixing it was putting some GFO in a little pouch in my overflow, didn't have any problems after that.

 

[amarti2038]

GFO works fine with Phosphates, to lower Nitrates I think there is just some ways:
- Watter changes, takes time and use many salt $$ and works for one week 10 days if you have high growing nitrates
- Add some algae reactor or bio reactor, on my LFS they told me it could then be difficult to remove from the tank once there.
- Add curated live rocks with many bacteria to convert the nitrates into gas

I think I will go for the live rocks as this is a long term natural solution, just a bit scared about bringing unwated guests.. I am thinking to quarentain before introducing it into the tank..

 

[amarti2038]

Hello

Just answer to who it may interest.

The problem with the high NO3 (+1ppm/day) was to few phosphates and carbon for the NO3 reducing bacterias.

I couldnt read values on PO4 using Salifert(always transparent),and I did a change to Hanna, I recomend you to change to Hanna PO4 ULR to get more resolution as the phosphate needs serios control to avoid issues with the Bacterias that reduce the NO3.

After bringing PO4 to 0.05ppm and dosing carbon (Red Sea NoPox or you may use vodka) the NO3 reduced in two days to the half. Now I run the NO3 at 2 ppm(grow setup) but you can control the NO3 just dosing more/less NoPox/PO4. I did a test and I even could reduced my NO3 to 0.3 ppm.

The key point is to understand that the bacterias reduce your NO3 into gas that leaves your tank, but they need PO4 and they also need Carbon.

Missing PO4 or missing Carbon will afect the bacterias and the NO3 reduction process. You have to measure your PO4 (bring it at least at >= 0.04ppm), I had nothing to measure the carbons, but just dosing works fine Vodka/Nopox staring at 2ml/day per 25Gal(100L) and increase, reduce to adjust.

If you see the video from red sea they also explain it there



And the denitrifiing bacterias tend to be less that what you need if there is no enough carbon/phosphat so you will need to keep dosing carbon (nopox/diy nopox/vodka) and also grant that you have enough PO4 measuring and dosing daily if need.

You may also reduce the N03 in other ways, refugium, algae reactor, but dosing carbon its just 2ml nopox/vorka per 25Gal(100Liter) and day.

You can control de N03 just changing your dosing I find it great and works for me now great.

Thanks to @TX_REEF and @Barrett T for their help.

Regards
Albert

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