New to this forum, and back again into the hobby. Seems like Reef Central isn't a thing anymore lol.
History - I previously owned a 125g reef late 90s / early 2000s, but didn't have the time and now I do again! I have a 60 gal cube which has been going for about 3 months now. To date I've not had any quality issues that weren't expected, the cycle went great, added a few corals, and a few smaller fish. Everything has been going splendid, and suddenly my nitrates went up from about 5 to 40.
I'm doing 5 gallon daily water changes as I really want to jolt the system as little as possible. After 3 days of 5 gallon water changes I'm down to about 20ppm NO3. PO2 has been totally stable at .25ppm
I make my own RODI and verified 0 TDs in my random tests, and I know that the tester works as I can use a glass that hasn't been rinsed with RODI to test and it's super high as opposed to 0. So regardless, Reef Crystals and my own RODI so I assume the water is good. I also have a very small ball of chaeto which runs in a small fuge in the sump.
I have a doser and run a cal mix, trace elements, and ph. I noticed my calcium was getting a bit high so turned that off entirely for right now.
The only thing I can think of that I added that's newish was a small dose of Reef Roids for the corals.... not sure if those can make nitrates spike like this.
Anyone have any thoughts on what could cause sudden spikes like this? It's a smaller tank than I'm used to and it's been a minute since I've played with the chemistry experiments known as reefing
History - I previously owned a 125g reef late 90s / early 2000s, but didn't have the time and now I do again! I have a 60 gal cube which has been going for about 3 months now. To date I've not had any quality issues that weren't expected, the cycle went great, added a few corals, and a few smaller fish. Everything has been going splendid, and suddenly my nitrates went up from about 5 to 40.
I'm doing 5 gallon daily water changes as I really want to jolt the system as little as possible. After 3 days of 5 gallon water changes I'm down to about 20ppm NO3. PO2 has been totally stable at .25ppm
I make my own RODI and verified 0 TDs in my random tests, and I know that the tester works as I can use a glass that hasn't been rinsed with RODI to test and it's super high as opposed to 0. So regardless, Reef Crystals and my own RODI so I assume the water is good. I also have a very small ball of chaeto which runs in a small fuge in the sump.
I have a doser and run a cal mix, trace elements, and ph. I noticed my calcium was getting a bit high so turned that off entirely for right now.
The only thing I can think of that I added that's newish was a small dose of Reef Roids for the corals.... not sure if those can make nitrates spike like this.
Anyone have any thoughts on what could cause sudden spikes like this? It's a smaller tank than I'm used to and it's been a minute since I've played with the chemistry experiments known as reefing