High Nitrates

[ds1000]

Hello I have a red sea s1000 that I cant get my nitrates down. Tank is 7 months old. Used caribsea liferock and caribsea arag alive reef sand. Phosphates were at 0 for some time and I had prorocentrum dinos. They are mainly gone now. Running 50w pentair uv. All redsea equipment in sump(skimmer, rollermat, pumps). No Refugium. Use 20 gallon refugium for my top off tank. Only use RODI Water to top off.
Should I worry about high nitrates? Most coral seem good besides my finger leather.
Tank Parameters yesterday were:
Nitrate: 51.7 (Hanna)
Phosphate: .03(Hanna)
Alk: 9.2 (Red Sea)
Calcium: 460 (Red Sea)
PH: 8.15 (Hanna)
Salinity: 33ppt (Red Sea)
Temp: 75
My Fish stock list is:

• Blue Hippo Tang (1)​
• Purple Tang (1)
• Firefish Goby (2)
• Diamond Watchman Goby (1)
• Yellow Watchman Goby (1)
• Yasha Goby (1)
• Spotted Pajama Cardinal (3)
• Bangai Cardinal (3)
• Flame Angel (1)
• Bicolor Foxface (1)
• Fire Clownfish (1)
• Starry Blenny (1)
• Blue Green Chromis (4)
• Ocellaris Clownfish (1)

 

[ds1000]

Here are some tank shots

 

[BryanM]

People are going to say thats way too high, but you can find high nutrient tanks that are gorgeous.... So I don't really know what to say or believe, except that your tank looks good, and if things appear happy, I wouldn't worry about it much.

If you wanted to lower nitrates, I would do it very slowly since your tank looks to be happy.

 

[Kooma]

I learned at one point that high nurtients isnt really the concern everyone thinks it is. Its not what seawater is, but I have ran high tanks for many years with plenty of success.

One thing I was told is you want a 10 to 0.1 ratio for nitrates and phosphates. And off-balance can cause diatoms, cyano, etc to get out of control. If your phosphate is .3, your nitrates should be 30, if .5, 50. Its easy to remember and ive seen beautiful reefs from this rule.

 

[ds1000]

Thanks for the info. Is .3 the same as .03 on the Hanna Phosphate low range checker? What are some good ways I could try to lower nitrates to match the 10 to .1 ratio? Or would it be better to slowly raise phosphates to match nitrates?

 

[mook1178]

Your tank looks good and is still young. Let it level out on it's own. If you start dosing and changing things and something goes wrong, you won't know if it is from what you changed or the high nitrates.

If the tank looks good and happy, let it be. Don't chase numbers for the sake of numbers. Chase numbers if you have issues.

 

[JumboShrimp]

(I really like your rock work--looks great.)

You don't seem to have too many corals... too bad you're not FOWLR... I had phosphates at 160+ ppm and no fish ever cared. Lol.

 

[vlangel]

I have a high nitrate tank and I don't worry about it. I do agree with @Kooma about the ratio. Since your tank looks so good I would not do anything drastic.
1. You could try cutting back on the food going into the tank unless you are already at a minimum feeding regiment. I endorse feeding fish well, so don't starve them.
2. You could try doing either more or bigger water changes and see if that brings things into a better balance.
3. Do you feed frozen or flake/pellets foods? I cannot verify this so maybe do some research to see if there is any truth to it but I read one adds more to nitrates and the other contributes to more phosphates.

 

[ds1000]

I feed frozen foods. I have held off on buying more corals due to the dino issue I had. I need to start adding some more but wanted to see if the high nitrates would be a problem.

 

[Clownreef]

High?!?! My nitrates are at 120 right now (ICP). Im going to do 20% (57 gal on a 265 gal system)water changes weekly for three weeks, dose home made no pox, run Phosban, and let my refugium do its thing. Ive been neglecting the tank so this is on me..

 

[It’s the Grim Reefer]

Yeah I agree with the consensus here. 50ppm isn’t that high. Just focus on the basics… keep up with weekly water changes, make sure you don’t over feed, could dose some very small amounts of NOPOX if you really want numbers to come down but be careful not to bottom out if you do this.

Your tank looks good and happy, so I would stress. If everything looks fine, it typically is. Don’t sweat it, and let us know if you see any further visual developments.

FWIW my tank was recently at 50ppm and I had no issues.