jimmypencil
Active Member
I recently got back from a week long vacation a few days ago and nitrates are reading over 75 on hanna nitrate HR. there are so many factors and im overwhelmed. Corals all look good but i have had a hair algae issue recently. ive done multiple water changes in the past 3 days and nitrates still read 75 today.
my normal routine is to test nitrates and phosphates every 3 days and dose neophos and neonitro if they drop below these levels, i keep nitrates between 15-20 and phosphate .05-.1. for testing i use hanna phosphate and nyos nitrate but i ran out of my nyos nitrate drops and just received a new nyos kit yesterday. the kit read 45-65ppm and i was really surprised. I tried the old kit with the new drops and it read 12. i guess my old kit was always reading wrong/low and i just kept dumping nitrate in? i just got nitrate hr hanna checker half an hour ago and ive tested twice and its reading 75+ both times.
there are so many things going on so im just gonna list off things that could have caused very sudden high nitrates.
- my girlfriend was feeding the tank for a week while i was gone, i showed her exactly how i feed and i highly doubt she fed such an insane amount of food to skyrocket my nitrates but its possible. every day i feed flakes and pellets in the morning and either nano reef frenzy or a cube of mysis in the evening.
- i recently took a brush and scrubbed all of the hair algae in my tank before a water change. i did this the day i got back before a 10% water change and i also did this yesterday before a 25% water change.
- according to my nyos kit ive used for months (which is apparently wrong/low) my tank absorbs 8-10 ppm nitrate per week and so ive dosed 10ppm neonitro weekly for quite a while. maybe i kept dosing based off false readings?
-i run a skimmer that i have to empty every 2-3 days, filter floss i change every 4 days, chemi pure blue and a bunch of bio balls. this hasnt changed since i set up the tank. i recently changed out my chemi pure blue.
Cant think of anything else that couldve caused this. there have been no livestock deaths that i have noticed. What should i do to lower these numbers? i have a tunze algae reactor that i still havent taken out of the box so maybe i should order some chaeto and set that up?
Here is the tank right now, looks pretty good so im afraid to take major action without asking you guys what might be going on.
my normal routine is to test nitrates and phosphates every 3 days and dose neophos and neonitro if they drop below these levels, i keep nitrates between 15-20 and phosphate .05-.1. for testing i use hanna phosphate and nyos nitrate but i ran out of my nyos nitrate drops and just received a new nyos kit yesterday. the kit read 45-65ppm and i was really surprised. I tried the old kit with the new drops and it read 12. i guess my old kit was always reading wrong/low and i just kept dumping nitrate in? i just got nitrate hr hanna checker half an hour ago and ive tested twice and its reading 75+ both times.
there are so many things going on so im just gonna list off things that could have caused very sudden high nitrates.
- my girlfriend was feeding the tank for a week while i was gone, i showed her exactly how i feed and i highly doubt she fed such an insane amount of food to skyrocket my nitrates but its possible. every day i feed flakes and pellets in the morning and either nano reef frenzy or a cube of mysis in the evening.
- i recently took a brush and scrubbed all of the hair algae in my tank before a water change. i did this the day i got back before a 10% water change and i also did this yesterday before a 25% water change.
- according to my nyos kit ive used for months (which is apparently wrong/low) my tank absorbs 8-10 ppm nitrate per week and so ive dosed 10ppm neonitro weekly for quite a while. maybe i kept dosing based off false readings?
-i run a skimmer that i have to empty every 2-3 days, filter floss i change every 4 days, chemi pure blue and a bunch of bio balls. this hasnt changed since i set up the tank. i recently changed out my chemi pure blue.
Cant think of anything else that couldve caused this. there have been no livestock deaths that i have noticed. What should i do to lower these numbers? i have a tunze algae reactor that i still havent taken out of the box so maybe i should order some chaeto and set that up?
Here is the tank right now, looks pretty good so im afraid to take major action without asking you guys what might be going on.
