New tank nitrates fell

fachatga

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I feel I’m becoming fairly knowledgeable at this and thungs are going better and better in my first tank. I’ve started a new bigger one and it’s been cycled for a few weeks. Just have some snails and crabs. Lawnmower blenny and 2 very small clowns. While it was cycling ammonia went down and as expected nitrite went up. Nitrate tests read 25 then 50 and I did a bunch of 25% water changes. My nitrites are now zero but my nitrates are now like 3. I tested both nyos and saifert. Got same result. Could the agae growing on the rocks just be taking up my nitrates? There had been some brown on the rocks and sand. Now there’s a little green growing on the dry rock. Not much. It’s 100 gallons and I used about 75% dry rock 25% wet live rock with live sand. I’m not worried about anything. But just thinking through why things are happening. I had just expected nitrates to stay high for a while and have to do water changes to control them. I don’t have refugium set of yet.
 

Bo.

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Your livestock and bacteria are likely consuming what you are introducing through feeding, congrats! Moving from diatoms to algae is most likely the stage you are starting.
 
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fachatga

fachatga

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Thanks . I think I know so much more than I did but my first tank was skip cycled with rock from my lfs with their water and they took care of maintenance for the first 6 weeks. So I wasn’t watching and testing or anything. This is the first tank I’ve had to cycle. So far so good I hope.
 

Azedenkae

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I feel I’m becoming fairly knowledgeable at this and thungs are going better and better in my first tank. I’ve started a new bigger one and it’s been cycled for a few weeks. Just have some snails and crabs. Lawnmower blenny and 2 very small clowns. While it was cycling ammonia went down and as expected nitrite went up. Nitrate tests read 25 then 50 and I did a bunch of 25% water changes. My nitrites are now zero but my nitrates are now like 3. I tested both nyos and saifert. Got same result. Could the agae growing on the rocks just be taking up my nitrates? There had been some brown on the rocks and sand. Now there’s a little green growing on the dry rock. Not much. It’s 100 gallons and I used about 75% dry rock 25% wet live rock with live sand. I’m not worried about anything. But just thinking through why things are happening. I had just expected nitrates to stay high for a while and have to do water changes to control them. I don’t have refugium set of yet.
Imo it's probably not much to do with the algae growing, that's probably not gonna affect anything much. Your water changes would have somewhat contributed, but not too much.

You mentioned your nitrites are now zero, implying it was not zero before.

Most nitrate test kits work by first converting a small portion to nitrite, then making a reading based on that, so if you already have nitrite in your tank, it can skew the nitrate reading. Once your nitrite was zero, it stopped skewing your nitrate and so now you finally read a much lower nitrate concentration.
 

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