Extremely high nitrate levels.

[BryanM]

8 fish and 3 cubes of food? If that's "okay" I am clearly starving my fish (I am NOT an expert and have found it hard to figure out how much to feed, fyi).

But that seems like a lot to me.

 

[Louis Z]

are y’all running ATS or cheatomorpha in the Refugium and still having issues with nitrate?

 

[Nick Barbier]

8 fish and 3 cubes of food? If that's "okay" I am clearly starving my fish (I am NOT an expert and have found it hard to figure out how much to feed, fyi).

But that seems like a lot to me.

I share those 3 cubes (Hikari Ocean Plankton, Hikari Spirulina wih Mysis, and San Francisco Bay Fish Eggs) between 14 fish. The 125g has 8 fish, and the 75g has 6 fish. And I only feed them once a day.

 

[PPBlimpy]

How i would personally tackle this.
what is your phosphates at?

feed less. i have 14 fish in my 125.

i feed a medium raw shrimp to my porcupine puffer ( hes messy so half that goes to the other fish) and then either a single cube of brine / mysis or pellets once a day.

I would not get rid of any rock or sand personally, keep dosing nopox.
2or 3 - 50% water changes a week apart.
ad chaeto or other macro algea,

if you are worried about rocks being soaked in nitrates you can take a med to large rock out and soak in a fresh 5 gallon bucket of fresh salt water mix with heater and small power head. let it sit in there for a day or two and then test the water in the 5 and see what the nitrates test at. this will hopefully leach out some inbedded nitrates but not kill any beneficial bacteria and can be put right back into the tank.

if that water in the bucket tests high you may look into doing this with all your rocks during water changes.

also i vacuum the sand bed but only in sections of about 10% every could days.

going to be a busy could weeks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, nitrate does not bind detectably to any type of rock from seawater. :)

Phosphate does, nitrate cannot.

 

[PPBlimpy]

FWIW, nitrate does not bind detectably to any type of rock from seawater. :)

Phosphate does, nitrate cannot.

good to know. wasn't sure but i know rock is porous so to get any of the old water out of the rock to help minimize whats in the system.

not sure how helpful but still would be my course of action

 

[Stevorino]

If it were me, I'd look at this as a 2 step approach:

1) Fix Nitrates short-term

If you have a bunch of coral and good stuff going on, you need to do it gradually. ~20% WC a week, which is inefficient and a PITA, but won't shock the system.

If you don't have any prized corals, then I agree w/ the LFS guy who said to drain it as much as possible and do a massive WC.

The reason he is saying that is because at 200ppm Nitrate, even if you were to get 80% of the water out, you still have 40ppm Nitrate which is still worthy of another massive water change.

I'm neutral on the sand removal. I hate disturbing sandbeds, but in this case I have to assume it's contributing mightily to the current and future nitrate issues.

2) Fix Nitrates long-term

This part comes down to how you want to tackle it. Roller Mats, Skimmer, Dosing Carbon (NOPOX/Vinegar/Vodka), Chaeto, Algae Reactor, Auto-Water Changes..... there's a ton of options.

I use a little bit of it all, but there's a learning curve to each piece, so I personally think it's best to add one or two and get used to it.

I personally don't think you are feeding too much. But you gotta get it outta there somehow.

 

[Ozziewog]

Hi fellow reefers, my 125g mixed reef has extremely high nitrate levels, over 200 ppm (not 20)! The tank is 10 years old. I tested the tank and couldn't believe the nitrate level. I brought a water sample to a LFS. They tested it and got the same nitrate level. This LFS suggested that I remove all the sand, increase dosing of NOPOX and start replacing the live rock slowly, one piece at a time. I took out half the sand and increased the NOPOX dosage. This didn't reduce the nitrate levels at all. At this point, I went to another LFS across town for a 2nd opinion. The manager told me that I shouldn't have gotten rid of any of the sand and that NOPOX is a carbon source and to stop dosing it. He then told me to do a massive water change, leaving only about 5 inches of water in the tank. The store owner told me to buy live nitrifying bacteria and start using filter socks. I left just enough water for the fish to swim around. I removed 63 gallons of water. I added a filter sock and added the bacteria according to the directions on the bottle.
I tested the water on a weekly basis for a month. The nitrate levels did not fall and are still over 200. Short of removing the live rock, half of which is about 15 years old and was transferred from my previous 75g reef tank, I've done everything two LFS instructed me to do. None of this worked. I have 8 fish in the tank and feed them 3 cubes of frozen food once a day which I also share with a 75g tank of 6 fish. I've lost most of the SPS and LPS corals. However, the softies seem to love the high nitrate levels. On a side note, I also had cyanobacteria which I have since pretty much eradicated using a UV sterilizer, a 4 day lights out period and Red Slime remover.
I don't know what else to do to lower the nitrate levels. Anyone that has experience/advice with lowering very high levels of nitrates, I would greatly appreciate your input.

 

[Ozziewog]

Check your rodi water and filters. Just had same problems . It was my resin filter. Did 40 gal water change no results checked water from rodi it was over 75 ppm. Read 0 on filter. I was dumping bad water into tank when I thought is was ok. Wasted 10 lbs of salt mix