nitrate spike!

[Poseidon]

i did my semi-weekly testing, twice a month basicly... today and was shocked to find my 180g dt to have 160+ nitrates... well whatever the number was it was the darkest red on the test pallet which was 160!!!!...
i dont know what the hell is going on... everything is reading normal, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, phosphates 0.5ppm
salinity 0.0025 sg, ph. 8.1, temp, 82f..... and then nitrates are CRAZY....

not sure what to do... everything looks normal in the tank... healthy actually... my red slime has gone WAY down since i started topping off with r/o water and using less hours of mh....
i did a 40g water change less than a week ago.....

help?

 

[pulpfiction1]

sounds like water change time,i would retest,with some one else test kit if possible,but looks like time for good old fashion maintenance

i should of asked first but.............your not running bio balls for your biological filtration? if so then this could be a major cause of nitrates

 

[Poseidon]

no im not... i running carbon in a reactor... havent changed that out in awhile... as well as a 1 filter so... which hasnt been changed in a while either...

 

[reeffreak]

no im not... i running carbon in a reactor... havent changed that out in awhile... as well as a 1 filter so... which hasnt been changed in a while either...

well you may have just answered what one contributing factor could be .. I would replace the carrbon asap and do as big of a WC as possible test again in 2 days see where your at ... change water again at a big % wait 2 days test again until you bring the nitrates down to atleast 20 then start doing 20% WC weekly . What test kit are you using ? Was your LR previously used ? do you knopw the person it came fomr if so , they could have used tap water .. LR will leach out over and over and over again so when you do WC and you find the nitrates arent moving then I would guess its your rock . But start with as big of a WC as yyou can . My guess would be the WC you have been doing are not big enough  or often enough . 

If your at 160 nitrates 50% WC should bring you down to 80 then do another one a few days after at 50% then you should be at 40 nitrates and so on .

 

[Poseidon]

ya i used tap water up until 2 weeks ago... lol... but my nitrates were 0 then... maybe i should just switch back to tap...  :?

the filter sock was never changed either... i dont know why... just didnt cross my mind i guess... took that out as well... i will do a big water change tmrw afternoon or early morning if i have time...

how will the carbon increase the nitrates??

 

[Duke]

if the carbon is old it will turn into a place for nitrates to form, this would be refered to a nitrate factory. keep in mind its going to take a whole lot of water changes to get that down, i'd check your RO water for nitrates also just to be sure its not coming from your water source. 50% total vol water change is only going to bring your tank down to 80-90PPM nitrates and if you followed that up with another 50% change your talking still being at 40-45ppm nitrates. you should look into bio pellets or carbon dosing once you get this all figured out. I just seen how big your tank is.. so for 230Gal total water you need to be looking at something other than waterchanges to get that number down.. to get to 10-20 nitrates its going to take 300G of waterchanges within a short period of time.

 

[Poseidon]

ya ill discontinue the carbon reactor and the filter sock and do a water change and go from there

 

[Duke]

if you dont do huge waterchanges your basically going to spend months to get those nitrates lower.

 

[Poseidon]

really?
when i tested 2-3 weeks ago they where zero... i have alot of macro algea in my refuge... that does/should help too or not?

 

[Duke]

start with a different test kit, or retest again to be sure, if it went from 0 to 180 in 2 weeks something drastic would have happened. the macro should help, plants use nitrates to grow. the more it grows the faster it will use them up.

 

[pulpfiction1]

+1 on what duke says,this would appear to be lack of proper maintenance to me,but i am outside looking in,carbon on my system never more than 30 days,and any mechanical filtration like socks or floss i change as soon as it looks dirty and it slows my flow

 

[reeffreak]

really?
when i tested 2-3 weeks ago they where zero... i have alot of macro algea in my refuge... that does/should help too or not?

No offense but I find very hard to believe that when tap water was used nitrates were zero then in two weeks u had a spike that high . Unless u stirred your sand bend up or something like that , dukes right it will take long time with small water changes and as far as I kno there's noway your going to drastically reduce them at that high of a level without doing massive water changes .  If u have a lot of macro then trim it down to 10% of what u have now the macro is a way to expect nutrients if your not exporting th macros then the nutrients are just sitting there

 

[reeffreak]

I will bet that this issue is mostly because the tap water escapade Also to be noted it should be rodi water not just ro

 

[reeffreak]

You will probably see this issue for a long time to if that rock has been sitting in tap water in loaded with nutrients

 

[Poseidon]

i used tap water for 6 months ... never a big issue... why now then when i stopped using it?? thats ridiculous... if thats the case im going back to tap water... im on well water anyways.. the only reason i switched to r/o di water was because of the phosphates

 

[reeffreak]

its up to you really but have you looked at your tds meter whats the PPM thats coming from the tap water ? what is it after its clean rodi water

 

[xxmurrxx]

I would check your test kit maybe, if nitrates are really that high wouldn't everything be pretty sick / dieing?
Idk

 

[Poseidon]

I would check your test kit maybe, if nitrates are really that high wouldn't everything be pretty sick / dieing?
Idk

thats what i was thinking.. but everything is healthy and fine... fish, corals... inverts... although i have noticed my turbos not moving as much actually..

 

[Victoss]

Ya try another test kit if you can, I'v had Nitrate tests go bad on me before, they just get old after a while. But this may not be the problem so if you don't plan on testing again very soon I would still do the water changes.

 

[reeffreak]

[quote author=xxmurrxx link=topic=3136.msg25705#msg25705 date=1347569595]
I would check your test kit maybe, if nitrates are really that high wouldn't everything be pretty sick / dieing?
Idk

thats what i was thinking.. but everything is healthy and fine... fish, corals... inverts... although i have noticed my turbos not moving as much actually..
[/quote]

not true , just because there alive and not showing signs of sickness doesnt mean there living in the best quality water they should be in , you dont want them to live in your tank you want them to thrive in your tank , a fish could live  in a tank with 50 ppm nitrate this doesnt mean there fine