Nitrate spike due to excess newly, uncovered organic waste

[educatedreefer]

In my 250gallon tank I took out my three foot long monti colony to frag to give to my LFS and to give out the smaller 5inch frags for free to local reefers, but unfortunately, in the process I had to remove the large rock structure it was attached to and disturbed quite a large portion of the sand bed and kicked up detritus and organic matter.
My nitrates were at 15ppm (I usually keep it between 10-25ppm) but now it’s up to 50ppm and I performed a 25% water change last night and now it’s reading 35ppm.
Should I start carbon dosing and heavy skimming to lower and export nutrients or should i just siphon the waste out of the tank and buy a ton of CUC tomorrow?
Doing large water changes on a 250g is quite tiresome so im not too excited about this process!

 

[WVNed]

I dont think you need to do anything more than what you usually do unless it goes back up to 50 tomorrow.
35 isn't terrible. Do another water change in 5-7 days. Continue until it is where you want.
Your filtration should remove the dirt you stirred up.

 

[brandon429]

@Dan_P

Dan when I see these posts I'm reminded about T's posts where detritus was stated as neutral. We have these instances above, plus we have roller mats now that solely affect nitrate levels by removing particulate organic matter

is it possible that T selected a source of detritus or prepped it in such a way as to strip it down/ash it vs how organic waste may present in typical reef tanks?

I don't think it's fully inert as we were thinking?

 

[Dan_P]

@Dan_P

Dan when I see these posts I'm reminded about T's posts where detritus was stated as neutral. We have these instances above, plus we have roller mats now that solely affect nitrate levels by removing particulate organic matter

is it possible that T selected a source of detritus or prepped it in such a way as to strip it down/ash it vs how organic waste may present in typical reef tanks?

I don't think it's fully inert as we were thinking?

There are no official rules for classifying unknown material found in an aquarium, so everything is detritus. @taricha detritus was likely visible material sitting in the corner, just waiting to be sampled. Because it was in sight (I think) the material was likely living in an aerobic world where nothing nutritious lasts for long.

Removing a large coral might have uncovered an anaerobic spot in the aquarium where organic matter is consumed more slowly and tends to accumulate. Suddenly exposing it to air could have been a huge picnic for the resident aerobic bacteria. Also, removing the coral might have killed off a mini ecology, which also presented a picnic to the heterotrophs in the system. There might also have been a small ammonia spike.

 

[brandon429]

excellent and thank you. these details impact our rip clean threads/risks/things to pre plan for. appreciated.

 

[taricha]

@educatedreefer would you do us a favor and do a nitrite (NO2) test if your NO3 is still showing high today.

 

[educatedreefer]

@educatedreefer would you do us a favor and do a nitrite (NO2) test if your NO3 is still showing high today.

Will do!
I’m currently dozing Brightwell Aquatics Biofuel (Vodka and NoPox dosing alternative) 25ml in the morning daily for the past three days. Recommended was 50ml but I went with 25ml to be safe and have been seeing my nitrates lowered by 5ml per day and my phosphates being consumed much faster.
I believe denitrifying bacteria stop lowering nitrates when phosphates aren’t present so im dosing a minuscule amount of phosphates to a detectable level until my nitrates are lowered from 35ppm to 15ppm.
I’m at work at the moment, but I’ll test nitrates asap.
I don’t have nitrite test kit, but would that help me determine the denitrifying rate of the bacteria or at least monitor the progression of the cycle?
Before this nutrient spike incident, I’ve been dosing Microbe-Lift Special blend once a week at the maintenance dose and have continued to do so during this progress to lower my nutrients.
I may siphon out the grey “ash” or i decomposed organic material if nitrates aren’t progressively being lowered next week and will start to turn up my skimming to remove the bacteria that has contained the nitrates from my system.
In the future, I may reduce the amount of sand in the tank and just use Xport brick or media balls in my sump for bacteria colonization and integrate more CUC since my LFS is having a sale today and tomorrow for Halloween!

 

[taricha]

I don’t have nitrite test kit, but would that help me determine the denitrifying rate of the bacteria or at least monitor the progression of the cycle?

Too badyou don't have no2 kit. Short answer is that I don't think disturbed sand has huge stores of nitrate.
But it is a large low oxygen space in a system that you say maintains decently high amounts of nitrate (15ppm). Those conditions could favor some no2. Release of nitrite making the nitrate test show much higher would be a very economical explanation.
Lots of complicated things can happen when you mix large anaerobic spaces with the rest of the water. Dan alluded to several.

 

[educatedreefer]

Too badyou don't have no2 kit. Short answer is that I don't think disturbed sand has huge stores of nitrate.
But it is a large low oxygen space in a system that you say maintains decently high amounts of nitrate (15ppm). Those conditions could favor some no2. Release of nitrite making the nitrate test show much higher would be a very economical explanation.
Lots of complicated things can happen when you mix large anaerobic spaces with the rest of the water. Dan alluded to several.

I used to keep lower nutrients: nitrates between 5-10ppm and almost detectable levels of phosphates at 0.03, but I saw WWC and other online vendors keeping their systems at a much higher nutrient level for coral coloration at 20-30ppm nitrates and phosphate between 0.03-0.1, so I’ve been dozing weekly to maintain elevated nutrient levels.
Im probably going to add either a gyre or an MP10 in that area of the tank to help prevent build of of debri.
Im hoping getting a large load of CUC will help mitigate the effects in the future.
Since my tank is well over 2.5 years old, would getting a sand sifting goby help as well or would just denitrifying bacteria/skimming and lowering food input help to prevent the problem for reoccurring again?

 

[taricha]

Im hoping getting a large load of CUC will help mitigate the effects in the future.
Since my tank is well over 2.5 years old, would getting a sand sifting goby help as well or would just denitrifying bacteria/skimming and lowering food input help to prevent the problem for reoccurring again?

I'm not sure that anything you could do with filtering or bacteria or skimming, nor adding a fish that likes to sift the top bit of sand would change much about the sand under a large rock structure.

My current feeling on these kinds of questions is, if you want the sand stirred, then stir the sand. Adding livestock to do something like that will probably be mostly unsuccessful.

 

[brandon429]

T please comment on this if possible

regarding storage zones, sinkable zones in a reef tank for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate


I'm curious to know which states of nitrogen we're likely to find in a reef tank substrate...all three equally, or skewed towards nitrite that can be released/was built up somewhere in the tank and not ran through typical oxidation machinery



would you think there are any conditions in which unused ammonia could be stored in a reef tank sandbed, barring of course any dead fish or dead worms...just in the normal daily running, anaerobic zones included, what's some general commentary on the storage ability for these three major cycling params in a running reef tank? it's very helpful to consider where bumping or re arranging certain aspects of a running reef tank could release ammonia, nitrite or nitrate to a significant degree

 

[taricha]

T please comment on this if possible

I'll have to think about it to come up with plausible ways there could be actual significant N sequestered in the sandbed.

Any NO2 would look significant, because any nitrate test is a super sensitive NO2 test.
Ammonia release could look significant just because ammonia tests are sensitive and tanks run essentially zero otherwise.
But those would just look significant in the testing scheme, probably aren't super meaningful in terms of actual amount of Nitrogen.

 

[educatedreefer]

Update! @taricha @brandon429
My nitrates remained at 50ppm, according to my Salifert Nitrate test kit and I’ve ordered the Ammonia and Nitrite test kits that should arrive tomorrow evening.
Additionally, the organic detritus or “ashy substances” were found both underneath the sandbed (about 2-3 inches thick) and directly underneath or inbetween the rockwork and the sandbed as well.
I removed half of my media balls to facilitate more export of bacteria in addition to turning up my skimming and replaced my carbon in my sump to reduce organics.
Currently, my phosphates are “bottoming out” while my nitrates, although greatly reduced from before, are still relatively high so I’ve begun to dose phosphates to a detectable level while:
1) dosing bacteria weekly
2) dosing Biofuel as carbon source daily
3) cleaning slimmer daily
4) replaced carbon
5) replaced half of bio balls in sump
6) dosing half recommended dose of amino acids to avoid completely stripping of nutrients
7) reduced feeding to once daily
8) should I still perform weekly water change??

 

[brandon429]

what you are doing isn't the right way to fix eutrophic tanks because none of that exports mass from within the sand and rock interstices, this does

some people describe their tank as wrecked when it's really not though, so if your issue is light then those dosers are ok to try/harmless

Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

the cause of old tank syndrome is compounding whole waste particles that blanket the interstitial sand grain zones and plug up the channels in live rocks- in some cases it's sheer overgrowth allowed from various invasions that plugs up the surface area on live rock combined with a thin veneer of...

www.reef2reef.com

*I wasn't going to jump right into a rip clean though that way we can use your heavy organic loading in testing

can you post a full tank shot of the challenge reef, let's see if it's as rough as a few of those.

 

[educatedreefer]

what you are doing isn't the right way to fix eutrophic tanks because none of that exports mass from within the sand and rock interstices, this does

some people describe their tank as wrecked when it's really not though, so if your issue is light then those dosers are ok to try/harmless

Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

the cause of old tank syndrome is compounding whole waste particles that blanket the interstitial sand grain zones and plug up the channels in live rocks- in some cases it's sheer overgrowth allowed from various invasions that plugs up the surface area on live rock combined with a thin veneer of...

www.reef2reef.com

*I wasn't going to jump right into a rip clean though that way we can use your heavy organic loading in testing

can you post a full tank shot of the challenge reef, let's see if it's as rough as a few of those.

So essentially, there’s a limit to the bio or more specifically, “waste-load” that my bacteria population and live rock can handle so I have to manually remove as much as possible to avoid OTS or New Tank Syndrome in an established reef tank?
Currently, I have a diatom or slight Dino bloom after reducing my nitrates from 100+ to 50ppm so I was thinking of dosing a mild algaecide to control it while removing as much waste as possible that results from the “uncovered detritus” at the original causative event of removing the rockwork last week and potential die-off in algae with the algaecide.
Currently at work and will send a photo of the issues at hand when I get home

 

[HBtank]

Got to have an active sand bed; another shout out to promoting diversity in tanks. In the case of my 15 year old sandbed, never been vacuumed/cleaned, it's just good flow and a massive amount of spaghetti worms (and other sediment varieties). If I dig in any spot there is a network of their castings that provide flow through the bed. I also have a hectors goby and bristletooth tang slowly working the surface.