This aggression will not stand, man

[LeftFootedJedi]

I do have some dry rock left in the garage

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

20% water change today & nitrates are about 20 ppm +/-. I’ll do another 20% tomorrow or Thurs & add some beneficial bacteria. See how she responds..

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

Did another 20% water change yesterday although still at 20ppm (nitrates). Livestock seems no worse for the wear but I’d like it lower.

I had a bottle of Seachem Stability from a few months ago but didn’t really like the results so will probably buy another round of TurboStart or something along those lines. Seems like a bacteria issue or lack thereof.

I mentioned situation to local LFS and they commented I likely stirred everything up & it’ll take a bit reintroduce more bacteria.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Did another 20% water change yesterday although still at 20ppm (nitrates). Livestock seems no worse for the wear but I’d like it lower.

I had a bottle of Seachem Stability from a few months ago but didn’t really like the results so will probably buy another round of TurboStart or something along those lines. Seems like a bacteria issue or lack thereof.

I mentioned situation to local LFS and they commented I likely stirred everything up & it’ll take a bit reintroduce more bacteria.

You are hoping the bacteria reduce the nitrate? That is not super likely.

 

[jccaclimber]

Did another 20% water change yesterday although still at 20ppm (nitrates). Livestock seems no worse for the wear but I’d like it lower.

I had a bottle of Seachem Stability from a few months ago but didn’t really like the results so will probably buy another round of TurboStart or something along those lines. Seems like a bacteria issue or lack thereof.

I mentioned situation to local LFS and they commented I likely stirred everything up & it’ll take a bit reintroduce more bacteria.

If we're talking nitrates specifically, there's a lesson about your LFS looking for an excuse to sell you a bottle of something because they can within this post.

 

[jccaclimber]

(snip)
Back to the nitrates, never considered how changing my scape would impact everything!! Never again. Probably not a bad idea to buy a Turbostart in the event it recycled.. what could it hurt adding more bacteria?

I didn't remark on this before. It won't hurt anything other than your wallet, but since we aren't dealing with a true ammonia spike in a new tank or a green cloud it probably won't help much either.

20% water change today & nitrates are about 20 ppm +/-. I’ll do another 20% tomorrow or Thurs & add some beneficial bacteria. See how she responds..

You mentioned previously siphoning substrate when you do water changes. Assuming you dig down to the bottom when you do this I'm surprised there's much of a cloud when you drop a clump of sand.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

What would you guys suggest for a nitrate spike under these circumstances?

 

[jccaclimber]

Personally I would call 20 PPM acceptable and go on with my day, but most of my tanks have been nitrate consumers, so I usually end up dosing it and would temporarily back that off. I like to be somewhere 5-10 PPM, but I've seen a lot of really nice SPS tanks at 20-30 PPM, so I wouldn't panic.

Water changes and vacuuming the sand for those who don't already are the two big ways to reduce it. Refugium is the third, but that's for chronic issues, at which point you might investigate carbon dosing and a variety of other things as well. If there was nothing trapped in the sand then an X% water change (assuming none in the new water) would reduce the nitrates by that same % and it wouldn't go up any more than the amount of food that was added.

When I've cared for tanks that needed a strong nitrate reduction (predator tanks, etc) my typical order of operations is:
1. Ensure feeding is reasonable. Probably not an issue in your system, but I've seen tanks go up 100 PPM per week due to excess food.
2. Do a water change. I'll first blow off the rocks quickly. If not much comes up I'll stop, if it makes a big cloud I'll do the whole tank. Either leave the pumps on and blow it all into the sump (settling chamber or filter sock, still need to get it out later), or with the pumps off try to get a lot of it to settle on the sand. I then siphon the sand, digging all the way down to the bottom glass. This requires a bit of a delicate touch with sugar sand to not suck the sand out with the water and gunk (tilt the siphon, or start/stop with a thumb over the outlet), but is easier with larger particle size substrates. Get anywhere you can reach. Don't worry about tearing up the 'scape for areas you can't reach. Do this until you either reach the volume of your water change target, or ideally have done the entire tank. If you still have more change water to go and things aren't coming up clear do it again. If it comes up clear and you still haven't reached your target for amount of water changed, now is a good time to suck off the rocks.
3. If it's a chronic issue, eg because of the amount of food going in you would have to permanently do unacceptable water changes (some people are ok with 75% weekly, others don't want to ever change water, this is a personal choice) then it's a good time to either add a refugium because there isn't one, turn up the number of hours of light (assuming it's growing well), make the skimmer run wetter, consider carbon dosing or sulfur denitrators, etc. Could always add more fast growing softies or LPS, they have a nice way of sucking it up too.

Finally, if it's leaching out of new rock it won't take long. Do some bigger water changes for a couple weeks until it's done, and remember to soak your new rocks in a bucket for a while before use next time.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What would you guys suggest for a nitrate spike under these circumstances?

20 ppm nitrate is not a value high enough to warrant special action, IMO.