Nitrate Issue Turned Emergency

[ccombs]

What salt have you been using?

HW MarineMix Reefer Salt

 

[ccombs]

Cuprisorb I believe it’s called. It absorbs copper and other heavy metals. Just trying to think outside the box, the sterile looking rocks is beyond odd for 6 months with fish lol. We will figure it out :)

I totally agree about the rock work. It has seemed odd to me that it hasn't shown the slightest bit of color change.

I really appreciate everyones input here, I have stalked the forums as a guest and done alot of reading, but a discussion is so much more helpful.

So once again... thank you so much!

 

[Hemmdog]

I totally agree about the rock work. It has seemed odd to me that it hasn't shown the slightest bit of color change.

I really appreciate everyones input here, I have stalked the forums as a guest and done alot of reading, but a discussion is so much more helpful.

So once again... thank you so much!

Anytime man! So when you say your alk was or is at 20... what do you mean... lol. That basic of a solution could be lethal, I’m no chemist, but that’s high!! Lol. I had mine at 13 one time but my corals were the indentifier of it being high, it’s harder with just fish. After doing a quick search of HW it seems that they have had quite a few batches with 2x or 3x the approximated alk once mixed out.
What else have you dosed into the tank since you’ve had it, even just once. You can be honest, we won’t Stone you or anything here lol.

Your not using anything else besides Nopox right now correct ?

 

[Kmadden]

First off. Are you running a sump, or an HOB filter?

I would recommend keeping your gyre on all the time. More flow is going to be beneficial for your tank. I would also move your rocks and check for a dead fish.

If you can't get the nitrates under control you should look into an algea scrubber or a refugium.

 

[ccombs]

Anytime man! So when you say your alk was or is at 20... what do you mean... lol. That basic of a solution could be lethal, I’m no chemist, but that’s high!! Lol. I had mine at 13 one time but my corals were the indentifier of it being high, it’s harder with just fish. After doing a quick search of HW it seems that they have had quite a few batches with 2x or 3x the approximated alk once mixed out.
What else have you dosed into the tank since you’ve had it, even just once. You can be honest, we won’t Stone you or anything here lol.

Your not using anything else besides Nopox right now correct ?

I will be completely open and honest with everything, no pride here, I just want a solution haha.

I used API 8.2 because my pH was at 7.8 and I wanted to raise it. I dosed it and everything was fine, it raised my pH to 8 and alk stayed the same. The next time I did a water change a few days later, I added the API product again because it said a second dose might be necessary. Well, when I added the newly mixed water to the tank for my water change, that is when the alk spiked from 9 to 20 and it was right before I went out of town for a few days. I will get home Thursday and do a water change and hopefully get that down, my wife tells me that everything is still alive. I just had her test Alk and it is at 17 as of a few minutes ago.

The issue with the Alk has all happened within the past few days, the nitrate issue has been a few months.

I am currently only dosing NoPox at 3ml every day. Below are the other things I have dosed.

API 8.2 as stated above.
API Water Conditioner Before I Used RODI
SeaChem Prime when I first started using NoPox, but then felt uncomfortable with that so went to just NoPox.
I read an article somewhere about using Prime and NoPox at the same time, but then when I looked into what each product does exactly and what they are trying to accomplish, I decided to drop the prime.

 

[elisa h]

Have you struggled with nitrate since the system started or has this all been recent? A sudden swing to 160 would have to be caused by something. Can you think of anything different you did or added around that time? I wouldn’t think 3 fish in a 6 month old tank could be producing that much even after water changes but I could be wrong. But I wonder if there’s something in there rotting or some other source causing the nutrients

 

[ccombs]

First off. Are you running a sump, or an HOB filter?

I would recommend keeping your gyre on all the time. More flow is going to be beneficial for your tank. I would also move your rocks and check for a dead fish.

If you can't get the nitrates under control you should look into an algea scrubber or a refugium.

It is an all in one tank with a pseudo-sump on the back side. It is chambered and I currently have 2 overflows.

Overflow 1 does the following:

1) Overflow
2) First Chamber UV Filter with Filter Floss Before It-Currently Off
3) Second Chamber-Just Bought Some Chaeto So I Can Make Refugium On Friday

Overflow 2 does the following:

1) Overflow
2) First Chamber Filter Floss then GFO then Carbon
3) Second Chamber Protein Skimmer

Both sides then meet up in the middle at my return pump.

Gyre is on at all times return pump heads are pointed across the top of the water line for a ton of surface agitation for oxygen exchange.

Based on what I have put in the tank, taken out, and currently count, there is nothing decaying in the tank currently. Everything has been accounted for except a blenny that I sadly watched my clean up crew pick out of the rocks awhile back, but that was after the nitrate spike happened.

 

[Hemmdog]

I will be completely open and honest with everything, no pride here, I just want a solution haha.

I used API 8.2 because my pH was at 7.8 and I wanted to raise it. I dosed it and everything was fine, it raised my pH to 8 and alk stayed the same. The next time I did a water change a few days later, I added the API product again because it said a second dose might be necessary. Well, when I added the newly mixed water to the tank for my water change, that is when the alk spiked from 9 to 20 and it was right before I went out of town for a few days. I will get home Thursday and do a water change and hopefully get that down, my wife tells me that everything is still alive. I just had her test Alk and it is at 17 as of a few minutes ago.

The issue with the Alk has all happened within the past few days, the nitrate issue has been a few months.

I am currently only dosing NoPox at 3ml every day. Below are the other things I have dosed.

API 8.2 as stated above.
API Water Conditioner Before I Used RODI
SeaChem Prime when I first started using NoPox, but then felt uncomfortable with that so went to just NoPox.
I read an article somewhere about using Prime and NoPox at the same time, but then when I looked into what each product does exactly and what they are trying to accomplish, I decided to drop the prime.

Gotcha, very detailed and it sounds like your on top of it.
Dang man, I’m really pretty stumped. I’ll bump this post again in the morning if some better advice dosent come by, we will get this figured out.
Any ideas #reefsquad ? This is strange, sterile looking yet massive nitrate levels in 6 month old tank?

 

[ccombs]

Have you struggled with nitrate since the system started or has this all been recent? A sudden swing to 160 would have to be caused by something. Can you think of anything different you did or added around that time? I wouldn’t think 3 fish in a 6 month old tank could be producing that much even after water changes but I could be wrong. But I wonder if there’s something in there rotting or some other source causing the nutrients

The only thing I can associate with the same timing is when I switched from tap water with conditioner to an RODI system.

I don't recall the timing on this, but I did use the UV filter temporarily to handle an algae bloom in the water around the same time, but it is currently turned off while I dose NoPox.

The first few months of my tank were fantastic in regards to water parameters. My GSP even flourished for a little bit.

 

[ccombs]

Nitrates don’t kill saltwater fish.

If you could quickly educate me, I realized the research I did on nitrate poisoning was never specific to saltwater or fresh. Is this something more prevalent in freshwater, or would it take something way higher that 160ppm to kill fish.

It is hard to know what articles/posts/etc. to trust on the internet so I would love if you could tell me a bit more about it.

I ended up chalking it all up to nitrate poisoning due to the fish having labored breathing and being sort of lethargic which is what I read as the symptoms, especially when there were no visible signs of parasites.

It is worth noting that the time from symptoms popping up to death was approx. 1-3 days.

 

[Dr. Reef]

I just skimmed through the thread. Lots of good people already trying to help.
Few things that jumped out to me which dont make sense are:

1. If your nitrates are 160ppm that are not high enough to kill fish.
In a lab study a harem to clown fish were subjected to 300ppm plus nitrates to have a casualty rate of 25%

2. If nitrates were truly 160ppm. You say your inverts are all accounted for and well. That would not be true either. About 50 to 80 you would have seen 25 to 30% die off and by 100+ 80% of your inverts would have perished.

3. Are you running a coil denitrator or sulfur denitrator or any other equipment with extremely slow flow rate?

 

[Kmadden]

It is an all in one tank with a pseudo-sump on the back side. It is chambered and I currently have 2 overflows.

Overflow 1 does the following:

1) Overflow
2) First Chamber UV Filter with Filter Floss Before It-Currently Off
3) Second Chamber-Just Bought Some Chaeto So I Can Make Refugium On Friday

Overflow 2 does the following:

1) Overflow
2) First Chamber Filter Floss then GFO then Carbon
3) Second Chamber Protein Skimmer

Both sides then meet up in the middle at my return pump.

Gyre is on at all times return pump heads are pointed across the top of the water line for a ton of surface agitation for oxygen exchange.

Based on what I have put in the tank, taken out, and currently count, there is nothing decaying in the tank currently. Everything has been accounted for except a blenny that I sadly watched my clean up crew pick out of the rocks awhile back, but that was after the nitrate spike happened.

Everything seems to be good there.

Is your skimmer taking out large amounts of light colored water or small amounts of very dark water.

Hopefully the fuge helps you out.

 

[Kmadden]

I just skimmed through the thread. Lots of good people already trying to help.
Few things that jumped out to me which dont make sense are:

1. If your nitrates are 160ppm that are not high enough to kill fish.
In a lab study a harem to clown fish were subjected to 300ppm plus nitrates to have a casualty rate of 25%

2. If nitrates were truly 160ppm. You say your inverts are all accounted for and well. That would not be true either. About 50 to 80 you would have seen 25 to 30% die off and by 100+ 80% of your inverts would have perished.

3. Are you running a coil denitrator or sulfur denitrator or any other equipment with extremely slow flow rate?

I agree. The inverts definitely would take the hight nitrates for one and if they somehow could stand them the huge swings in nitrates would certainly have wiped them out. He may have a faulty test or is getting bad readings.

 

[ccombs]

I just skimmed through the thread. Lots of good people already trying to help.
Few things that jumped out to me which dont make sense are:

1. If your nitrates are 160ppm that are not high enough to kill fish.
In a lab study a harem to clown fish were subjected to 300ppm plus nitrates to have a casualty rate of 25%

2. If nitrates were truly 160ppm. You say your inverts are all accounted for and well. That would not be true either. About 50 to 80 you would have seen 25 to 30% die off and by 100+ 80% of your inverts would have perished.

3. Are you running a coil denitrator or sulfur denitrator or any other equipment with extremely slow flow rate?

1) I totally understand that I might be wrong on the cause of death, I do appreciate the stats on casualty rate.

2) Inverts were added once I got nitrate below 80 and is currently around 40. Inverts are a fairly new addition to tank to take care of algae on rocks. With more extreme doses of NoPox (5ml) the nitrates get down to between 10 and 20. As I lower the dose to hopefully stop relying on the product, that is when the nitrates begin to rise rapidly and has me currently sitting at 40.

3) I am not running either of those items.

 

[ccombs]

Everything seems to be good there.

Is your skimmer taking out large amounts of light colored water or small amounts of very dark water.

Hopefully the fuge helps you out.

My skimmer takes out large amount of light water with some chunks floating around and the sides of the cup being coated in a nice slime.

 

[elisa h]

If you could quickly educate me, I realized the research I did on nitrate poisoning was never specific to saltwater or fresh. Is this something more prevalent in freshwater, or would it take something way higher that 160ppm to kill fish.

It is hard to know what articles/posts/etc. to trust on the internet so I would love if you could tell me a bit more about it.

I ended up chalking it all up to nitrate poisoning due to the fish having labored breathing and being sort of lethargic which is what I read as the symptoms, especially when there were no visible signs of parasites.

It is worth noting that the time from symptoms popping up to death was approx. 1-3 days.

I think dr reef partly answered that question but also check out this article http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php. Basically there is a huge chemistry difference between salt and freshwater aquariums. Nitrite and nitrate are much more toxic in freshwater. There was even a study done where it took crazy high levels of nitrite to kill a fish in saltwater. And nitrate is even less toxic than that. So in reality you really don’t have to worry about nitrate and fish. It would more be a concern with corals. Also lots and lots of fish maladies can cause heavy breathing so I wouldn’t automatically associate that with nitrate poisoning.

 

[ccombs]

I agree. The inverts definitely would take the hight nitrates for one and if they somehow could stand them the huge swings in nitrates would certainly have wiped them out. He may have a faulty test or is getting bad readings.

In regards to the test kit I have purchased 2 different kits (like actually different models of kit) and they have the same readings, as does my LFS.

The inverts were added after the extremely high nitrate spike, the highest they have ever experienced is around 60 for a couple of days and it has been 40 or lower since they have been in the tank. My issue is when I stop using no pox my nitrates rapidly rise and I just want to find my underlying issue.

 

[Kmadden]

My skimmer takes out large amount of light water with some chunks floating around and the sides of the cup being coated in a nice slime.

I would try to adjust it to take out less water and more waste. Try to ar least get the water to be slightly darker.

If your taking out that much water each time you empty your skimmer and top off your tank you could be seeing salinity fluctuations.

 

[ccombs]

I think dr reef partly answered that question but also check out this article http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php. Basically there is a huge chemistry difference between salt and freshwater aquariums. Nitrite and nitrate are much more toxic in freshwater. There was even a study done where it took crazy high levels of nitrite to kill a fish in saltwater. And nitrate is even less toxic than that. So in reality you really don’t have to worry about nitrate and fish. It would more be a concern with corals. Also lots and lots of fish maladies can cause heavy breathing so I wouldn’t automatically associate that with nitrate poisoning.

I really appreciate that input, thank you!

 

[elisa h]

Oops that was the wrong article. Let me see if I can find the right one