silvester13
New Member
Hi Smart Reefers,
I am getting me **** kicked by high nitrates and phosphates, see log from my Hanna Tester:
A little history:
I bought an established 150g tank from FB and saved the water, LR and fish. Brought it all home and added about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of the sand from the tank and the rest put in new live sand 3 bags To about 1.5-2”.
When I first tested the nitrates they were so high they were unreadable, the phosphates at about 12ppm and the nitrates from my API test kit were about 160ppm. As you can see from the attached log i did a water change (with RODI water and was able to then test the nitrates via the Hanna Marine Master tester. That is where the attached log starts. Before WC of 70g is the bottom entry of 75ppm nitrate (max reading for the tester) which is when I then used the api and it read approximately 80-160ppm (I suck at color charts). After my 70g WC I was down to 45.4ppm nitrate. Which I was happy to now be able to measure them from my Hanna tester. I also started dosing with a home aide nopox diy of vodka/white vinegar. This didn’t seem to help and seemed to kickstart Cyno bacteria so I decided to stop vodka dosing. I then thought my Reef Octopus standard s model was maybe too small for the 150g tank so I bought a beast of a skimmer (Red Sea RSK 900) over sizing the tick out of it
And that didn’t seem to help… I also bought a “nitrate removing pad to put it in the sump between the skimmer and return. That was a waste of money and did nothing…
It is my understanding the nitrification process from food/poo to nitrate is about 2-6 weeks… So I can not figure out why after a water change my nitrates drop as I would expect proporti to my WC size, but each day after they go back up by 10-20ppm. I do not change my socks the day of WC. I tested my RODI water and verified it was 0 nitrate/nitrite/ammonia. I just started using Elimi-NP today at the recommended dose, and I just bought a Red Sea BRS with media to put in in the next few days. I also bought a new sump (trigger sapphire 39) that I will install with the BRS to potentially start a refugium as my current sump doesn’t have room for one.
My fish stock:
Koran Angel
Cream Angel
Ocellaris clown
Diamond goby
Porcupine puffer
Bi color angel
leapard wrasse
spanish hogfish
Lyetail Antias
My Feeding per day is (1 time per day)
1.5 Medium Shrimp (Feed directly to Putin the puffer)
2 Small pieces of frozen krill (Feed directly to Putin the Puffer)
2 - 1/8tsp of frozen ocean plankton/spirulin brine shrimp/mysis shrimp mixed with 10ml water to get to the 1/8 tsp with equates to about 1 cube total. A little Nori every 3 days.
The question becomes how can I keep the nitrates down after WC?
What is causing the nitrates to go back up 1 day after WC?
If someone could please help me understand and potentially remediate these high nitrates/phosphates and stop me from hemmoraging more money, I would be forever grateful!
Thank you in advance!
I am getting me **** kicked by high nitrates and phosphates, see log from my Hanna Tester:
A little history:
I bought an established 150g tank from FB and saved the water, LR and fish. Brought it all home and added about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of the sand from the tank and the rest put in new live sand 3 bags To about 1.5-2”.
When I first tested the nitrates they were so high they were unreadable, the phosphates at about 12ppm and the nitrates from my API test kit were about 160ppm. As you can see from the attached log i did a water change (with RODI water and was able to then test the nitrates via the Hanna Marine Master tester. That is where the attached log starts. Before WC of 70g is the bottom entry of 75ppm nitrate (max reading for the tester) which is when I then used the api and it read approximately 80-160ppm (I suck at color charts). After my 70g WC I was down to 45.4ppm nitrate. Which I was happy to now be able to measure them from my Hanna tester. I also started dosing with a home aide nopox diy of vodka/white vinegar. This didn’t seem to help and seemed to kickstart Cyno bacteria so I decided to stop vodka dosing. I then thought my Reef Octopus standard s model was maybe too small for the 150g tank so I bought a beast of a skimmer (Red Sea RSK 900) over sizing the tick out of it
And that didn’t seem to help… I also bought a “nitrate removing pad to put it in the sump between the skimmer and return. That was a waste of money and did nothing…It is my understanding the nitrification process from food/poo to nitrate is about 2-6 weeks… So I can not figure out why after a water change my nitrates drop as I would expect proporti to my WC size, but each day after they go back up by 10-20ppm. I do not change my socks the day of WC. I tested my RODI water and verified it was 0 nitrate/nitrite/ammonia. I just started using Elimi-NP today at the recommended dose, and I just bought a Red Sea BRS with media to put in in the next few days. I also bought a new sump (trigger sapphire 39) that I will install with the BRS to potentially start a refugium as my current sump doesn’t have room for one.
My fish stock:
Koran Angel
Cream Angel
Ocellaris clown
Diamond goby
Porcupine puffer
Bi color angel
leapard wrasse
spanish hogfish
Lyetail Antias
My Feeding per day is (1 time per day)
1.5 Medium Shrimp (Feed directly to Putin the puffer)
2 Small pieces of frozen krill (Feed directly to Putin the Puffer)
2 - 1/8tsp of frozen ocean plankton/spirulin brine shrimp/mysis shrimp mixed with 10ml water to get to the 1/8 tsp with equates to about 1 cube total. A little Nori every 3 days.
The question becomes how can I keep the nitrates down after WC?
What is causing the nitrates to go back up 1 day after WC?
If someone could please help me understand and potentially remediate these high nitrates/phosphates and stop me from hemmoraging more money, I would be forever grateful!
Thank you in advance!
