Newish tank parameter swings

[Jose Romanelli]

Hey guys, I bought a proclear v200 aquarium October of 2023 and have slowly stocked up the tank with fish and corals. I currently am battling high nitrates at 42.1. I did a 20% water change and started up the refugium area yesterday with Mexican calerpa to help bring nitrates down. My question is is this a normal parameter swing? I know the tank is maturing and have been adding skimmer, ato, refugium as the tank keeps maturing. I have had some corals perish at the beginning, acans and the first 2 torches died (guessing from parameters swinging). Filter socks are changed weekly, I feed twice a day. I don’t know if it’s my water schedule or flow throughout the tank that is giving me a hard time with corals.

water test results:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 42.1
phosphate: .077
Ph: 8
Calcium: 480
Magnesium: 1350
Alkalinity: 9.9
Salinity: 1.028
Temp: 76. 28


Current inhabitants: blue tang, blonde naso tang, engineer goby, 2 clownfish, coral beauty angelfish, 3 anthias, 3 firefish, blue throat wrasse, Katherine fairy wrasse, and a fox face.
Current corals: torch, frogspawn, candy cane, mushroom, two elegance, and zoas.
Current invertebrates: anemone, starfish, hermit, snails, and a blood shrimp

 

[MnFish1]

It looks like a nice tank. Hard to answer what caused a problem a while ago... Also - you didn't mention what the 'swing' in nitrate was (I'm assuming you meant 0 -- 42). However - you can do a 50% water change - and your nitrates will be 21 - Do it again tomorrow as well.

 

[Jose Romanelli]

It looks like a nice tank. Hard to answer what caused a problem a while ago... Also - you didn't mention what the 'swing' in nitrate was (I'm assuming you meant 0 -- 42). However - you can do a 50% water change - and your nitrates will be 21 - Do it again tomorrow as well.

Sorry, the swing was it went from 6.4 to 47.1. Did a water change yesterday and it brought it down to 42.1. When I had nitrates at 6.4 I suffered from phosphates at .15. I’ll keep doing a water change, but is there a set rule of phosphates to nitrates there needs to be? I hear 200 to 1 others say 100 to 1 and then others tell me the lowest possible nitrates.

 

[MnFish1]

Sorry, the swing was it went from 6.4 to 47.1. Did a water change yesterday and it brought it down to 42.1. When I had nitrates at 6.4 I suffered from phosphates at .15. I’ll keep doing a water change, but is there a set rule of phosphates to nitrates there needs to be? I hear 200 to 1 others say 100 to 1 and then others tell me the lowest possible nitrates.

You may want to look at this calculator...
https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectiveWaterChange.php