Nitrate problem

[rynosaurus]

So I bought my 12g AIO already set up from a gentleman that seems to have neglected it completely. Ever since I acquired the tank my nitrates have been through the roof! I have gotten them to come down a bit but my test results still show 160ppm! Countless water changes and cleaning with very little feeding and still not much results.

My question should I remove sand and rock and clean everything keeping only 50% of the water? If I do this I would also go buy some starter bacteria. I figure this is as good as starting over but I shouldn’t have to wait for the tank to cycle, or would I?

Any advice is appreciated guys thanks.

 

[alton]

Does the tank and corals look good? If so start with 50% water changes once a week until they come down. They did not get to 160 over night, no use dropping them immediately. Also have your LFS do a test, maybe your kit is not correct?

 

[IslandLifeReef]

So I bought my 12g AIO already set up from a gentleman that seems to have neglected it completely. Ever since I acquired the tank my nitrates have been through the roof! I have gotten them to come down a bit but my test results still show 160ppm! Countless water changes and cleaning with very little feeding and still not much results.

My question should I remove sand and rock and clean everything keeping only 50% of the water? If I do this I would also go buy some starter bacteria. I figure this is as good as starting over but I shouldn’t have to wait for the tank to cycle, or would I?

Any advice is appreciated guys thanks.

Also, what are your nitrite readings? Nitrite in the tank can cause false nitrate results. A nice baseline of all of your readings will allow anyone who has gone through this before have a better idea of how to help you.

 

[DeniseAndy]

With my small tanks (6g) I literally will take everything out and clean and do a 100% water change to get algae and such under control. I also have a spare laying around so I can switch out to keep clean for presentations.

I have done almost a 100% water change on my 40g after being gone for a time and it was much better for it. It will not hurt the occupants as long as you keep the rock live. Although, I usually like to add a prodibio vial of bacteria just in case sometimes.

If nitrates are that high, do 100%. If it is because of nitrites, you have a problem with bacteria not keeping up with waste. Find the sources of waste and get a way to control them.

 

[brandon429]

yes

pls post pics. I think we have saved about a thou old nanos doing that above, and there's a large sand rinse thread based on the cleaning out of my own old nano, we have ways to deep clean them and not get a cycle upon setup

pixers

 

[rynosaurus]

I will have an answer on nitrites tonight my current test kit does not include that. I did test a friends tank with the same kit and his was ok.

I have three fish currently in the tank but I’m about to sell them so I can get this tank stable. I do have about 5 corals and will be keeping them.

Is it ok to clean the sand and pressure wash the rocks to get rid of everything? I figure I’ll add the bacteria and be ok?

 

[rynosaurus]

 

[rynosaurus]

I will past all water test results later tonight. I’ve also noticed my sand continues to turn red even after siphoning multiple times

 

[brandon429]

the number one kit in reefing I would never own is a nitrite test.


don't test for nitrites they're not needed to know, they are neutral in reefing and we don't test for them at all in the advanced cycling threads. misreads cause problems, and testing for argon is as helpful as knowing nitrite, we don't need that value to proceed bc after our cleaning they w be true zero even if they aren't now. only detritus stores w affect them, and we w fix that

ill post the sand rinse thread here its long but has several examples before and after of what you are about to do.

No form of bacterial help is needed whatsoever. we'd simply pull out the fish and hold temporarily, take out the rocks and clean them nicely outside of tank using clean saltwater, replace the entire bed w new sand, highly rinsed of course~

put all back together, if no detritus comes back in on your rocks, no recycle. move back over corals, reacclimate fish, don't use any old water do a 100% new water setup using the old rocks and brand new sand. your old sand has been in contact w phosphates a while, Id ditch it.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

 

[brandon429]

its also a handy detail that your tank looks now about as good as many of those after they were cleaned. There's no deep waste pocketing in that bed per the cross section, rocks don't look bad they look aged, the truth is a rip cleaning is neutral/never harmful, but its not guaranteed to get rid of that light cyano in the sandbed, we have perfectly good reef tanks that do that since the organism is adapted to being on a perfectly healthy reef. cyano in that mode doesn't indicate problems at all, cyano grazers are what take care of that in the wild.

the cleaning is still good so you can develop trust in skip cycle work, however. lots of reefers deal with light cyano and never actually clean the tank, though Id never medicate a tank for it, Id rather deep clean we can see.

 

[rynosaurus]

Ok my worry with 100% water change is wouldn’t I have to wait for water to cycle again? I’m ok with replacing sand because I’d like to get different grain soda anyways. I will read the thread you posted thank you.

 

[brandon429]

the only way I run a 12 yr old nano reef packed with $1000 worth of corals is by 100% water changes, they're wonderful when done correctly and large tankers would benefit too if it wasn't such a big job, so that's why you have people dosing carbon, vodka, no pox, all manner of offsets simply because an easy rip clean isn't practical.

 

[rynosaurus]

I’m sorry maybe a dumb question but why do we have to cycle the tank first time around but it’s ok to replace all the water after? It only makes since to me the the water would go through the same cycle again. If

 

[DeniseAndy]

Ok my worry with 100% water change is wouldn’t I have to wait for water to cycle again? I’m ok with replacing sand because I’d like to get different grain soda anyways. I will read the thread you posted thank you.

The water does not cycle. The bacteria that lives and completes our ammonia, nitrite, nitrate cycle is in the rocks mostly or in any other type of filter you may have. Not in the water.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I’m sorry maybe a dumb question but why do we have to cycle the tank first time around but it’s ok to replace all the water after? It only makes since to me the the water would go through the same cycle again. If

Not dumb. Good to ask. First time around is to get the rocks full of bacteria, not the water. I have not actually cycled a tank in years and I have set up many. I would not try it until you know what you are doing though. :)

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I have to agree with Brandon429, the pictures you posted don't look bad at all.

 

[rynosaurus]

Ok one more question do I pressure wash rocks, just rinse them thoroughly or just leave them alone completely?

 

[rynosaurus]

I’m glad the tank doesn’t look bad I’ve tried hard to keep it clean i have worried about the red I’m my sand and the constant bubbles that form in the sand, I assumed it was all due to or the cause of the high nitrates

 

[brandon429]

the sickest trick for ridding live rock of detritus is to simply fill up a paint bucket w nice clean sw, stick a single rock in and do the twist hard and fast, working that rock among the water. Then let it sit an hour in that bucket, repeat as some will come from the inside animals as the outer portions were dislodged. the ocean rids it LR better than we do; good idea to swish clean older rocks any time you like you can't hardly do it wrong just use normal clean sw. Mine really don't have to be swished due to 2 reasons: old lr grown with heavy coralline gets its surface area smoothed out and retains less than early porous LR and 2. my system has always had flushing water changes, not normal ones. There are times where I feed so heavy I have to do four back to back 100% changes just to export the waste out of the system (pico reefers coral steroids trick)

it never built up detritus to begin with.



but the point is, only detritus can hurt a system, something that clouds. If you have a cloudless system, do what you want with it.

we can rip clean the tank for practice if you want, building that trust in your tank is major we can see in the thread. People w be hesitant to fix anything, so early cleaning before you are packed with coral is ideal

if you want to do it we'll add you to the last page too. if not, that tank is ok as - is though a run through bed replacement sure might help those final reds if you don't like em. try more blues less white light first round since that's so easy. if after a week of that the red stuff doesn't get better, can clean np and force it out.

*disclaimer for detritus lovers out there (we have some pros who run DSB's very old undisturbed and others have sumps full of it... which will cloud upon disturbance=detritus, but it has nutritional value too and some are using that by design I guess) and they wouldn't rinse their sink traps for a million bucks. that is a valid approach, in that case do not rinse. my method here is simply how to access a tank to force it to run clean, should someone want to do that. I sure do. The only thing allowed in my system is coral and purple coralline all else is forced out. vermetids too, they do not listen to me they remain as they please we deal

 

[rynosaurus]

I am definitely going to clean this tank all rocks are gonna get cleaned and sand replaced also going to use this time to clean back wall of the tank ... in s way I want to start fresh