Im lost and need to understand

r2d2

r2d2

Member
Hi all,

I need to understand were does 20ppm of nitrates are comming from.:help:
Last weekend I made a 50% water change in order to reduce them. But a day later, after taking new readings, nitrates were still at 20ppm, not a single point down.
So... I had two main suspects, RO water or salt mix. I prepared few SW with same RO as source and here you have....


P1070106.jpg


On left corner new SW with same RO and salt mix at 0ppm and in right corner SW from my tank at 20ppm! BTW I saw a fish doing me :makefun:

I thought my test was odd buy dont, Im getting different readings. I know there is a lot of Nitrates in tank because of algae and diatoms.

Were are they comming from!?!?!?!?!
 
jcgardner

jcgardner

Member
How oftern are you feeding your tank? How many fish do you have in the tank? Do you have anything that maybe dead? Just my first thoughts.
 
Kovu

Kovu

Member
Have you check the tds that might be the problem i notice when mine started to come up nitrate reduction slowed down.
 
r2d2

r2d2

Member
I have a TDS meter on the way... RO unit is 3 months old.

Inhabitants: 1 med yellow tang, 1 sixline wrasse, 1 cromis, 1 damsel, 1 small goby and 1 algae bleny. Some inverts and corals. No fish has die recently.

I feed fish twice a day with very few pellets each time. Rinsed frozen food once a week. Filters food once a week.

Clean my skimmer every two days with dark skimate. Change my sock every two days.
 
K

Klebbenator

New Member
I'm nowhere near an expert (I can't even get rid of hair algae blooms on my LR), but I can tell you what I would do:
Since you were at 20ppm and did a 50% change, it should have came down to 10ppm immediately after the water change. I would test it, do another 50% change, test it again right after and then about every few hours to form a baseline on how fast it is rising. If it goes from 10ppm to 20ppm in 24 hours, that might indicate that your carbon/filter media is saturated and is leaching nitrates back into your system. It's gotta be coming from somewhere! Probably not a good thing, at any rate. Good luck in getting it cleared up!

Kevin
 
B

BLAKEJOHN

Active Member
What is your stock and how much and how often are your feedings?
The nitrates may not go down after one WC. I would do a few large water changes a week. Also you need to keep any filter pads and sponges clean (every other day or every day). Nitrates come from decaying matter. You need to make sure you have no areas that can allow matter to rest and decay. So good flow is a requirement. Now you also need to export this waste in some manner, wether it be Macro algae, skimmer and/or WC's. I would start doing 30-50% per week for the next month and see if you have a significant decrease in NO3.


guess I need to type a little faster
 
r2d2

r2d2

Member
As one of my suspects was RO water, I went to a lab and get 30g of bi-distilled water. Im planning to do another WC this weekend and remove carbon, even if its two weeks old.
 
B

BLAKEJOHN

Active Member
Yes carbon can leach PO4 and other nutrients back into the water. You dont need much carbon so use a little and change it offten (3-4 table spoons and change it every week with WC)
 
r2d2

r2d2

Member
I use a very cheap carbon and easily triples that amount.... hmmm... I think I have another suspect:ponder2:
 
r2d2

r2d2

Member
Ok, I've already removed all carbon from system and throuh away all conteiner, it was about to finish anyway...
I'll do a large WC this weekend and left system run without carbon.
What carbon brand do you recommend?
 
B

BLAKEJOHN

Active Member
r2d2 said:
Does dry algae, tangs food (nori), may be a nitrate source?
Click to expand...

Not really. Can be a sourse of PO4. But that is something they need every day. So I wouldnt worry about the nori.

One of the best carbons on the market is ROX 0.8. It is around $20USD for 1.5lbs. I use Kent which is about half the cost.
 
r2d2

r2d2

Member
I know nitrates and phosphates have direct impact on algae growth, but, do they have a correlation? I mean are they related to point were one implies the other?
 
J

jkburton1s

Member
i would get a media reactor and use a de nitrate product. i had problems at first but quickly went away. if somethong died you should have ammonia. i think
 
Eric

Eric

Google Warrior
PREMIUM
What size tank do you have?

Off the top of my head I would say cut your feeding in half and see what happens, those pellets are compact and create quit a mess. I hate to say this but I bet at least 75% of algae and nitrate problems are probably due to over feeding.

I doubt it's carbon leeching contaminants back into the water if you change it frequently, also not running carbon at the moment may make things worse it may be helping hold a balance.

Are any of your other levels off?

Just my .02
 
blue_eyes53813

blue_eyes53813

Well-Known Member
I would cut feeding back a little.. Also not sure if it was mentioned but is your skimmer skimming sufficient? How is your water flow in the tank? Reason being if there is dead areas in the tank like near the sand bed or behind rocks it could cause issues. Do you clean the sand bed periodically? May have to much food in the sandbed decaying... Just a few ideas....
 
r2d2

r2d2

Member
Tank is 75g with 20g sump. In sump there is a sock, skimmer rated for 150g and a fuge with sand, rock, culerpa and chaeto.
For circulation I have 2 Koralia #2 and return outlets. There is no an evident dead spot, maybe behind rock but even there sand looks very clean.
My sand in general have a diatom right now due to high nutrient levels. But my Goby and hermits work hard to keep it clean.
Any thing else that can help?

Greetings
 
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