Sudden Nitrate Spike - How to Mitigate?

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Enad

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Hi all,

So I have a fairly new tank that has been doing super well over the last two months. Water parameters have been great, corals have been growing(one even split already) and booming in color, fish have been thriving.

I just did a water change yesterday then ran some water tests. Everything is where I expected it to be except my Nitrates have gone up from ~5 a week ago to 50+ now. I've noticed a reaction with some of the corals, i have a beautiful unique 4"x4" green toadstool that has fully retracted its polps and is scrunched up to half the size it usually is.

The only cultript I can think of is a tiny Clown Goby I added to the tank last weekend and have not seen since. I imagine it must've died and caused a spike but there's no way I'm going to find the body. What confuses me though, is that the ammonia levels are still 0 - could it be possible to have a dead fish without ammonia levels rising?

I've been dosing small amounts of Phytoplankton to feed my copepod population. Could this potentially be a cause as well?

My question is how do I get these Nitrates reduced? I've lessened the feedings, I've tried blasting away detritus and sifting through the sand bed and I just performed another 2 gal water change. It's clearly affecting the corals so I'd like to address it as quickly as possible to avoid loss.

Tank Specs:
Red Sea Max Nano Penninusla 27g
2 Clowns
1 Damsel
1 Possum Wrasse
1 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Turbo Snail
1 Emerald Crab
Assortment of hermits and other snails

Any help would be appreciated!
 
Could it be a testing error? That’s a big jump for 1 week.
 
Could it be a testing error? That’s a big jump for 1 week.
It seems that it was a testing error/contamination. I went to my LFS and had them test the water and it read between 5-10, completely in line with my normal levels.

Still want to find that poor Clown Goby...
 

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