Newish reef / sudden nitrates

[hydroskillet]

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

 

[lapin]

Howdy

In a new tank things are going to flop around. Could be the bacteria is now catching up to the bioload

 

[Reefer1978]

Welcome to R2R. What's your livestock like and what do you use to test your water params?

 

[vetteguy53081]

In new tank, sudden spikes with ammonia-nitrate and phosphate will occur
If you way to stay ahead of it, you can add chemipure elite to your filter which will keep it in check

 

[hydroskillet]

Welcome to R2R. What's your livestock like and what do you use to test your water params?

thanks! Currently there a single chromis (he needs a couple friends later), yellow stripe maroon clown, royal gamma, and a blue tank (baby), a BTA, cleaner shrimp, and a handful of snails and hermits. So not a ton. I did switch to a wet skim this week to try and get some of those levels under control. They're not end of the world high, but better to catch it now I think

Using API liquid and strips for the testing, but I think maybe those aren't the best from what I read! Regardless they're showing about the same NO3 readings.

 

[Reefer1978]

I was afraid you would say API. They are notoriously bad for NItrates specifically, 6 years ago I lost half a tank of prized Discus due to a bad brand new API Nitrate kit and I will never use their kits again. Get something much better, I have a feeling you didn't get a sudden rise, but a gradual rise API failed to catch.

 

[hydroskillet]

I was afraid you would say API. They are notoriously bad for NItrates specifically, 6 years ago I lost half a tank of prized Discus due to a bad brand new API Nitrate kit and I will never use their kits again. Get something much better, I have a feeling you didn't get a sudden rise, but a gradual rise API failed to catch

ugh I hope that's not the case. Any recommendations? I usually use Amazon for most of my purchases as the LFS seem a bit higher on everything. Amazon can bring it's own issues, but hey covid days and delivery

 

[Reefer1978]

I use Red Sea personally. They are not the greatest, but consistent.

 

[[Cameron]]

Water changes don't do much for nitrates. Spikes are typical if some live stock dies but more often than not it is overfeeding. Kick up your skimming, stop feeding for a bit and put some clean chaeto in there even if it is just floating around in the main tank.

You can also dose small amounts of Vodka to turbocharge the bacteria but make sure you are skimming like mad. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php