Nitrates Out of Control :(

[TashaB98]

Hey everyone! So my partner and I are in a bit of a pickle. We have had our tank running for about 10 months now, we have a total of 15 fish, a variety of LPS and SPS corals, nems, inverts, stars, and more in a 250G. We were doing wonderfully with our parameters for quite a while, but throughout the summer our nitrates have been steadily climbing and nothing we are doing has seemed to be working.

We do nearly weekly-biweekly water changes of about 20%-25%, we have replaced our RO/DI filter and installed a second DI filter in addition to our RO/DI filter. Our TDS measures at 0-4. We have no deceased creatures and our ammonia stays at 0 ppm but our nitrates hover between 30-45ppm with our highest reaching an astronomical 57ppm. We have a sump with a refugium, regularly harvest the chyto and have a powerhead in the sump so the chyto is tumbling/cycling. We blow off the rock work when we do water changes to disturb anything that has settles, vacuum the sand/substrate, we have added a new powerhead in the tank to improve circulation in the tank, we have *literally* done everything that is recommended and nothing we do can bring down the nitrates.

We use the Hanna HR nitrate reader and will usually do 2 repetitions to confirm the number. We keep the tank at 77F, 1.0255-1.026 salinity, and all other values are within normal range (phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, pH, ammonia, magnesium). We have an automatic feeder that feeds very small amounts 4 times/day and will occasionally handfeed our tubastraea mysis but we are careful to not overfeed/add unnecessary nutrients to the tank.

What else can we do? What could we possibly be doing wrong that our nitrates are so drastically out of control? We are exhausted, defeated, and desperate. Thank you so much :)

 

[AydenLincoln]

Do you see negative impacts or effects because of it? Like algae or dying corals? If not I would not worry. The more you change/add to try and chase numbers the less stable a system is and the more damage you could potentially do. Systems can be run successfully with high nitrates and if you are not seeing any negative impacts. I would keep doing what you are currently doing.

 

[TashaB98]

Do you see negative impacts or effects because of it? Like algae or dying corals? If not I would not worry. The more you change/add to try and chase numbers the less stable a system is and the more damage you could potentially do. Systems can be run successfully with high nitrates and if you are not seeing any negative impacts. I would keep doing what you are currently doing.

We had a MASSIVE hair algae bloom and some of our corals are kind of looking not so hot however, our BTAs have been on the move lately and really irritating the crap out of some of our corals so we're kind of trying to figure out if our corals are unhappy because of the nitrates or our travelling BTAs.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hey everyone! So my partner and I are in a bit of a pickle. We have had our tank running for about 10 months now, we have a total of 15 fish, a variety of LPS and SPS corals, nems, inverts, stars, and more in a 250G. We were doing wonderfully with our parameters for quite a while, but throughout the summer our nitrates have been steadily climbing and nothing we are doing has seemed to be working.

We do nearly weekly-biweekly water changes of about 20%-25%, we have replaced our RO/DI filter and installed a second DI filter in addition to our RO/DI filter. Our TDS measures at 0-4. We have no deceased creatures and our ammonia stays at 0 ppm but our nitrates hover between 30-45ppm with our highest reaching an astronomical 57ppm. We have a sump with a refugium, regularly harvest the chyto and have a powerhead in the sump so the chyto is tumbling/cycling. We blow off the rock work when we do water changes to disturb anything that has settles, vacuum the sand/substrate, we have added a new powerhead in the tank to improve circulation in the tank, we have *literally* done everything that is recommended and nothing we do can bring down the nitrates.

We use the Hanna HR nitrate reader and will usually do 2 repetitions to confirm the number. We keep the tank at 77F, 1.0255-1.026 salinity, and all other values are within normal range (phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, pH, ammonia, magnesium). We have an automatic feeder that feeds very small amounts 4 times/day and will occasionally handfeed our tubastraea mysis but we are careful to not overfeed/add unnecessary nutrients to the tank.

What else can we do? What could we possibly be doing wrong that our nitrates are so drastically out of control? We are exhausted, defeated, and desperate. Thank you so much :)

I recommend 5-50 ppm for nitrate. So IMO, 57 ppm is not astronomical.

If you want it lower, there are many ways, and organic carbon dosing is a fine approach.

 

[jmcdona6]

I agree with others. Tank is still young.

Keep monitoring. Keep with the water changes. Try to experiment with other export methods. Do not freak out. Do not make it worse trying to aggressively solve for your borderline nitrate problem.

Slow and steady. One day you will be worried about how to keep nitrates in your tank.

 

[docscorals]

I agree with Randy, that numbers not crazy. In addition to organic carbon dosing, I would recommend some bacterial dosing. I have great success with Dr Tim’s (I use Refresh, Waste Away, and Ecobalance). I dose each of the products once a week on different days. You could also look at some of the Brightwell products. I have used Microbacter 7 and Microbacter Purple in the past with great success.

For carbon dosing I use Tropic Marin Bacto Balance every day to keep my numbers stable. When they get high I use ElimiNP. I dose each the bacterial dosing I mentioned above alongside this. The combination works great.

 

[JonoH]

As Randy suggested - organic carbon dosing is the way.
How is your sump set up, do you have plenty of media/rock in there for bacteria?