High Nitrates - poor husbandry or something else?

[apipkin]

Hi! I am new to this forum and this is my first post I have a RSM 250 that has been set up for about 8 months. I've had the tank for a little over a year now, but had to drain it because I was suspicious of all my fish "disappearing" in 3 days that maybe there was a high jacker that was eating everybody. After doing that and letting it dry out I set it back up. I had water, sand, rocks and snails in there for about 4 weeks before adding any other livestock. I admittedly do not do water changes very often (maybe 10-15 gallons a month) and I feed flakes once a day Monday thru Friday and frozen food once a day on the weekends. Other than that, I scrape the glass and top off with RO water.

I've noticed some cyano for about 2 weeks that seems to be progressively getting worse. I normally check my levels about once every 2 months and checked yesterday and everything looks good except my Nitrates - they are 50+ according to the chart. I asked around and most people say I haven't been doing water changes properly so I'll be adjusting my "schedule" to do water changes properly to get the Nitrates under control.

But then someone mentioned the skimmer may not be doing what it's suppose to be doing and that could effect things. I didn't know if that was a thing until I did some looking online for "rsm250 skimmer" and found many people are modding or upgrading because the one that comes with it is "not so good."

I'd be happy to hear some thoughts on whether other people are running into the same thing and if so, how they were able to win the battle (as well as anything else that could be helpful). I don't mind hearing about how poorly I've been doing in husbandry as long as you are also able to give me some guidance on how to do it better because there is still so much I don't know about.

 

[Joeys Tank]

One of the main methods to reduce nitrates in a tank is by water changes. I heard a good rule of thumb is changing out 20% of your water will reduce your nitrate levels by 20%. Therefore, with the WCs you are doing, I would expect your 50ppm nitrate level to drop down to 40ppm (still high). High nitrate spikes are seen at the end of a tank cycle because of the beneficial bacteria converting ammonia -> nitrites -> nitrates. At the end of the tank cycle is when you see people changing out 40-50% of their water to help pull down the nitrate levels.

I am not sure how many fish you have in your tank. However, you are feeding your tank every day. Not sure if this is too much or not based on your livestock. Is all of the food being eaten with 2-4 minutes? Do you have any leftovers in the tank? Feeding the tank drives up nitrates (via the nitrogen cycle), WCs reduce them. There are other methods to reduce nitrates in a tank. A skimmer helps pull out waste before it starts to break down through the nitrogen cycle, thereby resulting in less nitrates. Algae is another consumer of nitrates. The cyano progression is feeding on the nitrates. Some will grow macro algae (e.g. craetomorpha) to naturally pull out nitrates from the water.

Just some info. Not sure which course of action will work best for you. If your skimmer cup is creating smelly brown foam, then it is working. If there is no food left in the tank after 2-4 min of feeding, then your feeding routine is fine. Water changes are a quick fix to the nitrate problem, but there is something in which you are doing that is allowing the nitrates to build up.

Keep us posted on how it goes. Definitely interested in hearing about your experience.

 

[apipkin]

Thanks for the reply! Currently I have a young Desjardini Sailfin Tang, 5 Chromis (1 recently "disappeared"), a Pistol Shrimp, a Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, 2 Emerald Crabs, 2 Sandsifting Stars, and a handful of tiny hermits and snails. Lots of live rock - maybe 80 pounds. My bedding is about 1.5 inches thick and is mixture of sand and crushed coral.

Usually when I feed the flakes, I would just sprinkle this on the surface and hope they ate most of it before it went into the overflow - I have recently learned that's not the way to do it and I have since changed my method - I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of food breaking down in the back of the tank because of how much would go back there. I also put in the crab pellets for the little guys on the ground. I don't know about 2-4 minutes, but easily within 15 minutes, the feeding activity has calmed down and I don't see any food moving around or lying on the ground. I've generally been cautious of over feeding, but I honestly never accounted for the food going into the overflow.

The skimmer doesn't seem to get anything in it right now but yellow-ish water and a small amount of "skim mate" (at least I think that's what it's called). This makes me think that I have something really off with how the skimmer is set up and that could be contributing to it as well. If getting a new skimmer is something that I need to look at, I'll do that too as long as it's an upgrade or a replacement part for the one that comes with the tank.

I'm not a fan of being in this situation and doing a water change will get things back in line over time, but I'd really like to modify my "habits" to work towards minimizing these events in the future. I definitely got into this hobby because I wanted a tank with a Tang, so I did a good bit of research early on, but most of it didn't cover maintenance regarding husbandry schedules to keep levels proper for the fish to thrive. Any and all information will be well received

 

[Joeys Tank]

Here are two good links to start reading on tank maintenance. They are here on Reef Sanctuary and should be a great springboard for other research topics for you.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ic-week-august-21-tank-maintenance.html[\url]

 

[Mark9]

This is the one mod I did to my skimmer, really helped me getting it to work very well.
Turned the stock valve wide open, added a second valve that is way easier to turn and adjust.
As for flakes, I sprinkle then into the palm of my hand, dab a finger in the tank, into the flakes, then sink them so they don't float.
maybe you need to do a good cleaning, wash the sponges, vacuum out the back sumps, blow all the detritus off the rocks, etc.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

to ReefSanctuary and the RSM Club, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members

Start a new tank thread & share your tank with us so we can follow along - we love pics

some great advise ^

My best guess... that may help is 1st... don't overfeed, so easy to do, as the fish always "look and act hungry" try one cube of frozen, ever other day

start wc 10-15% weekly

add or replace with fresh... your chemical filtration - like purigen & cpe (chemipure elite)

here also a great :read: on nitrates

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/red-sea-max-owners-club/77551-nitrate-problem.html#post1074453

 

[Pat24601]

I think I'm confused about how old your tank is after you basically reset it up.

I'm new, so my thoughts aren't as informed as others here, but I know I had high nitrates for a while as my tank cycled. I do a weekly 10% water change (5 gallons) and did a bit more at the start.

My nitrate issue naturally settled down for me. Currently, they are somewhere close to zero.

I guess what I'm saying is could you nitrate issue be caused by the initial cycle (rather than feeding) and you just haven't done enough water changes to clean it up yet?

I don't know.

 

[Choff]

If you just started fresh again you are also going to go through an algae cycle. If you follow good husbandry as Pat mentioned things should gradually get better.

Chromis die. They built reach other until 1 remains. Do a quick Google search and you will see countless posts with similar experiences.

...stupid auto correct

 

[Pat24601]

Oh, and on feeding I agree that it's good to get the food to sink before it ends up in the sump if it is doing that, obviously.

I had that problem too. There are a few ways around it, but basically I think with flakes or pellets it amounts to getting them to sink rather than float. I use pellets and throw them in tiny pinches down into the water with some force, which causes them to sink. I keep doing really tiny pinches until my fish don't eat them all quickly, then I stop.