Lots of pics: Decrease nitrates or leave alone? Low maintenance tank I HATE water changes

subzero

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32 gal bio I’ve, lots of established rock to start, and is 6 months old. Sadly a lot of my stuff died 2 months ago when tank reached 92* for a few hours, but most survived. My prized gold tipped green cloves died, SPS died, some spas aren’t opening as nicely, but it’s made a really nice recovery.

I haven’t changed the water in a month. I feed heavy. Big bio load. BUT, my tank looks great. I’ve been dosing trace elements and reef ca/buffer (part A+b), every 4-5 days, without checking anything.
I checked my parameters, first time I’ve had slightly high ammonia (0.5), nitrite (0.5), and nitrates through the roof (180+) using petco kit with drops (I feel like a chemist hah).

I have the bio cube skimmer that doesn’t really do anything cept aerate the water, and massive amounts of chaeto growing crazy in chamber 2.
This pic is today. How can I get nitrates down without changing water? I’m SUPER lazy. Should I even bother? Everything looks happy…

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Bxr126

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Honestly it sounds like either your tank is not properly cycled, your test results are invalid. If my tank had those parameters I'd probably be scooping up dead fish. I certainly wouldn't have any coral left. I would immediately take some water to the LFS for testing and/or invest in some good test kits. Salifert or Hanna. There are many ways to lower nitrates but I don't know any that require next to no effort. Somebody else will have to weigh in. laziness and reef tanks are very rarely successful together.
 

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Ive got a 300 litre display and 70 litres actual water in display
So thats like 100 gallons so over 3 x your volume and it takes me 15 minutes to do a roughly 10% water change ,i turn off skimmer,return pump and ato ,then i use cheap pump and hose and pump water out sump ( but can pump out dt if want,and when pumped out exact same amount as i got new saltwater to pump in.then i put same pump in new salt water and it pumps in nearly to botton of bucket as inlet at bottom. Then turn skimmer,ato,return pump back on and thats it 10% wc done in 10 minutes.
I dont like doing wc but i feel it will give me less problems doing it so all my parameters dont go out of whack as they say,maybe you could do something like this.and if dont want carry bucket new saltwater to the tank you can just buy a longer hose.
I will attach screenshot of hose in a minute.
Also i got taught dont dose anything you cant test for as you dont know whats going on.
This screenshot not exact one i got but vety similar.the inlet at bottom so nearly pumps everything in

Screenshot_20210829-001049_Chrome.jpg
 
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subzero

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I just use coral health as the test… call me old fashioned. If things are growing, I’m doing the right thing. I don’t need some test number to tell me what to do. I was taught same rule in medicine… we don’t treat numbers.. we treat patients (ie. If everything is great but 1 lab returns abnormal, don’t chase it if it doesn’t make sense).
Right now, my anemone has been the biggest and widest as it has ever been. And the tank is definitely cycled - if nothings dying, everything’s growing, then it’s cycled lol. I mean I had a nasty tank after the temperature crash… look at the recovery!
 

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ying yang

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Well if you super lazy and wont do wc even if only takes 15 minutes ^_^ then you could get some kind of reactor that reduces nitrates but research on it as some reduce phospates but i read it reduces them to well and can end up bottoming out and then get other troubles so you cured one problem but then got another.
Also could run some macro algae like chaeto to eat the nitrates as food
 
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subzero

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I have the entire 2nd chamber packed with chaeto it’s literally overflowing.

bit what does a water change do? I add all trace elements and ca/alk.. chaeto/LR do bio filtering… what am I missing here
 

Bxr126

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I just use coral health as the test… call me old fashioned. If things are growing, I’m doing the right thing. I don’t need some test number to tell me what to do. I was taught same rule in medicine… we don’t treat numbers.. we treat patients (ie. If everything is great but 1 lab returns abnormal, don’t chase it if it doesn’t make sense).
Right now, my anemone has been the biggest and widest as it has ever been. And the tank is definitely cycled - if nothings dying, everything’s growing, then it’s cycled lol. I mean I had a nasty tank after the temperature crash… look at the recovery!
I agree your tank probably is cycled. However. In the engineering world we treat numbers. .5 ppm of ammonia when its supposed to be zero is not an indication of a cycled tank. Therefore your reading are not accurate. This is why I recommended new test kits. You may not even have a nitrate problem?
 

Bxr126

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I have the entire 2nd chamber packed with chaeto it’s literally overflowing.

bit what does a water change do? I add all trace elements and ca/alk.. chaeto/LR do bio filtering… what am I missing here
Recommend harvesting the cheato.
 
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subzero

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I agree your tank probably is cycled. However. In the engineering world we treat numbers. .5 ppm of ammonia when its supposed to be zero is not an indication of a cycled tank. Therefore your reading are not accurate. This is why I recommended new test kits. You may not even have a nitrate problem?
It was 0/0/20 ammonia/nitrite/nitrate a month ago.
 

ying yang

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A water change will replinish elements that your corals are using and take out stuff like nitrates as dillution is solution to pollution ^_^
 

Bxr126

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It was 0/0/20 ammonia/nitrite/nitrate a month ago.
To be blunt, I don't believe the newest set of readings. They need to be validated. What I suggested is exactly what I would do well before I changed my routine or anything in the system.
 

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