Extremely frustrated, can't lower nitrates on established reef. Massive water changes, bacteria supplement, carbon dosing, chaeto...NOTHING WORKS!

[bsr2430]

This is crazy it’s happening like this.
I would strongly stop vacuuming the sand bed all together. Horror stores start there...

With you having sps, why not just go bare bottom instead of having any sand? I get it looks very nice, but everything builds up there.

Also, this is a long shot, could something be leeching into this tank? I mean if you’ve already done everything listed and nothing has work, that makes me think it has to be something else than this.

If you’re moving the fish out, you should move you’re coral out too.
Then keep doing what you’re doing and you can really experiment what’s happening without a headache of killing your sps.

 

[Jeff Jarry reef]

Have you ever considered a Turf Scrubber?

That was going to be my answer I put one one my tank and it kept my nitrates and Phosphates in check. Love it

 

[Bpp124987]

If water changes aren’t helping then there’s a nitrate _production or uptake_ problem.

There may be some third problem that is causing coral die off and poor health, which is reducing (the corals’) nitrate uptake. This third problem is likely the root and what you should focus on...

Seems insane to let a 4 yo tank just die.

 

[Gogi]

Your low phosphate availability is the limiting factor for nitrate uptake by both bacteria and chaeto. Raise your phosphate and the bacteria/chaeto/coral will be able to grown again and consume the nitrate.

Natural nutrient control systems work awesome, but they're alive. So you can't just expect them to thrive in any environment.

Also, no rush. As you've noticed, tanks do quite ok with high nitrate. Coral colours are more likely dull due to low phosphate than high nitrate.

 

[bradoo]

My bet is on iron. Then NO3 will decrease.

 

[Lasse]

Is one of the myths that NO2 can´t exist after the first cycle. It can. Overfeeding, dead fish, dead algae, treatment that have killed the second step of nitrification bacteria and so on.

That you can´t see any change in NO3 after massive WC indicate that there is something that disturb the measurement or a bad test. Make 1 l fresh saltwater. Let it stand for 1 day. Take a nitrate test. Take water from your aquarium - 1 liter Take 10 glasses - in the first 10 ml New Saltwater - 90 ml Old aquarium water, the second - 20 ml new saltwater - 80 ml old aquarium water, the third 30 ml new saltwater -70 ml old aquarium water and so on. Take a Nitrate test on each of your glasses. Compare - You should have a linear regression from 100 % aquarium water to 0% aquarium water. If you do not get an linear regression - something wrong

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Reeferjones]

carbon dosing and cheato could be working against each other. I would pick one or the other. also since you're already using microbacter7 try using it with some brightwell bricks. using those I am having trouble keeping nitrate in the tank. good luck. KOR.

 

[lmm1967]

Poor Man's Nutrients Control - Donovan's Nitrate Destroyer

Hello fellow reefers!. I have been in the hobby for more than 3 years, the first 2 years was tough. Cyno, diatom, nuisance algae, high NO3 (120ppm at one time) and ich/velvet. I have tried several nutrient control method (poor man, so most of it were DIY project). GFO, water fall scrubber...

www.reef2reef.com

That ^ works - it takes a bit but once it kicks in - you'll be fighting to keep NO3 / PO4 up.

 

[BloopFish]

Haven't read all the response, but my first thought was just like that of several people here - I think you are phosphate limited. Algae and other organisms that will uptake nitrate in your system will also require phosphate to grow as well. They can't grow on nitrate alone.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Is one of the myths that NO2 can´t exist after the first cycle. It can. Overfeeding, dead fish, dead algae, treatment that have killed the second step of nitrification bacteria and so on.

That you can´t see any change in NO3 after massive WC indicate that there is something that disturb the measurement or a bad test. Make 1 l fresh saltwater. Let it stand for 1 day. Take a nitrate test. Take water from your aquarium - 1 liter Take 10 glasses - in the first 10 ml New Saltwater - 90 ml Old aquarium water, the second - 20 ml new saltwater - 80 ml old aquarium water, the third 30 ml new saltwater -70 ml old aquarium water and so on. Take a Nitrate test on each of your glasses. Compare - You should have a linear regression from 100 % aquarium water to 0% aquarium water. If you do not get an linear regression - something wrong

Sincerely Lasse

I am with Lasse on this one. Before you get too far down the path of trying everything including the kitchen sink on this, you should rule out nitrite as you could be chasing a ghost. In the presence of nitrite, you can't measure nitrate reliably. As Lasse has pointed out, and that you have indicated, you have changed a lot of water (1000G?) and not seen a reduction in nitrate. This does not make sense, though it would if the tests are being interfered with due to the presence of nitrite.

It should be pointed out, that nitrite is a normal part of the nitrification and de-nitrification cycle so any change to your bio-filter, whether intentional or by happenstance, could cause nitrite to be produced.

Dennis

 

[ReefGeezer]

1. Big water changes with no change in nitrate levels.
2. Carbon dosing, Vinegar and NoPox, with no change in nitrate levels.
3. Cheato not well doing in the supposedly high nitrate environment with phosphate present.

Assuming 1 & 2 were done correctly, these observations suggest testing error. Lasse made a sound suggestion to verify the test kit or the OP could just try another kit. Testing Nitrite to eliminate that cause would also seem prudent.

And, FWIW, I replace the curvelets in my Hanna ULR kit when tests start reporting higher than expected results. The old ones get scratched/etched over time and cause large testing errors. BRS sells them for cheap w/ free shipping.

I wouldn't take any more steps until I verified my testing.

 

[Quietman]

I'm going to suggest a different tack. I doubt it's a testing error since you've checked, I don't think you were ever limited by phosphate (unless you saw <.02ppm and I missed it), and I'm not sure nitrite would have that impact - but could be, I also don't think it's iron since you've been doing big water changes and that should take care of trace elements.

I've seen another thread were someone got rid of algae all at once by another method and had nitrates go sky high and had a hard time bringing them down. So I've been thinking about this morning...

So I can see sky high nitrates after eliminating algae in a mature tank - you just released a bunch of nutrients. But why does it stay high...obviously there's another source which I think (and I'm just trying to apply a thought exercise without data or testing) could be bacteria die off and detritus breakdown but in succession causing a long term high nitrate condition. Nitrate doesn't bind to rocks or substrate that I'm aware of but the detritus from a massive algae die off can both directly and from bacteria waste could cause sustained additions of nitrate build up for quite some time.

I don't have any solutions other than the obvious...but I doubt extremes of new treatments or reactors are needed more than time and persistence. Water changes, carbon dosing as you did before, keep cleaning the sand bed (removing the water instead of cycling back into sump as some do). Because in the end...if you're not adding nitrates, they have to be coming from the decay of biological organisms or their byproducts...eventually that will slow and dilution and removal will gain the upper hand again.

 

[Gogi]

0.05 is pretty low phos

 

[Quietman]

0.05 is pretty low phos

Not really...most (and this isn't a poll mind you) try to keep below 0.1 ppm with .03 ppm being ideal. Less than that and you run danger of 0 ppm either from from consumption by bacteria and/or because our test kits aren't exactly lab grade and it eliminates error from causing an unseen 0 ppm condition. 0 ppm phosphates, which can cause a whole other set of issues unless you're proficient at running ULNS. Of course there are tanks running much, much higher phosphates successfully but the OP didn't say he was.

This did bring up something I didn't add to my previous...if there are bacterial 'blooms' and die offs happening as a run down cycle (run down due to removing nutrients) then it'll also be important to monitor PO4 as it could easily bottom out and become limiting.

 

[Daniel Waters]

I have an established reef about 4 years old. Primarily SPS; about 2 months ago I had a nitrate spike of about 60 after I used Vibrant to get rid of some hair algae in tough spots (it killed algae within my two week dose of 30ml once per week). I typically run the tank anywhere from 5-10.

Nothing has really changed; I never did major water changes in the past. My livestock is fairly low for a 300G tank. 96x30x24

Livestock: 3 yellow tank, 1 sailfin tang, 1 blue tang, 1 powder blue, 2 clown, 1 anthias, 1 diamond goby, 1 green wrasse, 1 melanaurus. (No fish death in the last 2 years, ammonia is 0/nitrites are 0)
Skimmer: Lifereef oversized 36 inch rated for 400-600
Salt: instant ocean with 5 stage RODI. Water tests 0 no3.
P04: 0.05 according to hanna ULR and 0 according to salifert (junk/useless)

I have tried vinegar dosing, currently been using 50ml of nopx every day for the last month and it has done NOTHING. At this point I am so desperate I don't care if I wipe my tank and tried using AZ-NO3 and nothing. I am also dosing 50ml of microbacter7 daily. Chaeto in my algae reactor is not growing at all and starting to die.

I have always vacuumed my sand bed daily; it's only 1.5 inches at best and I have tons of rock in the tank.

Over the last two weeks I have changed out over 500G of water doing 50-100G a day and nitrates are still 50+. Has my tank reached the age where it's just destined to die? I am tooth grind mad right now over this crap.

@2Wheelsonly , I suspect you are very frustrated indeed. And after reading through this thread, i suspect you may be EVEN more frustrated. Let me offer some alternative theories and thoughts based on what you have shared.

You probably have correctly identified the initial cause of this problem. The vibrant dosing caused a die off spiking your nitrates. I'm not familiar enough with vibrant to know its mechanism of action, but I wonder if it's possible that the vibrant also had an impact on some of your nitrifying bacteria. If so, this would partially explain the ongoing nitrate issue. Let me elaborate- while you claim you do not have a heavily stocked tank, you listed 6 tangs, some of which can be extremely large. One large sailfin tang might produce as much ammonia and waste as a dozen smaller fish (when I kept a naso tang, my nitrates stayed at 10 ppm...after I removed him, my tank runs at 0- that one large tang was able to keep my nitrates up that much higher). I would think, though, that after 2 months your bacteria would have reached critical mass to effectively deal with the nitrate as quickly as before (and use the nitrate up). SInce your large water changes are not seeming to have any impact on your nitrate levels, then this would tend to confirm that your fishes daily production of ammonia (or urea is probably more accurate) and waste are above some critical threshold level that your bacteria can effectively consume. With many biological processes, things are rarely linear. You just may not have reached that bright line yet to tip your tank back into it's more balanced level.

As far as carbon dosing, you have mentioned doing this for 1 month. Sometimes carbon dosing can take much longer before you will notice a change. I remember when I carbon dosed and I swore it was doing nothing. Nitrates always stayed at 40 ppm (large water changes had no effect for me eirher). Weeks and weeks of no results, and then it seemed like a switch was flipped and the nitrates came down quickly. It was not a linear / proportional type of drop. Be sure you are increasing your dosage appropriately. Test your nitrates and adjust accordingly. You may need more time for the carbon dosing to work. I think it took me 2 to 3 months for it to start working on one of my older tanks.

As others have said, you may want to stick with either carbon dosing or macro algae / refugium. Both could be used together but you are probably getting too many competing processes. Without knowing how big of a refugium you have or how much algae you can grow, I would tend to lean towards recommending carbon dosing as being the initial mechanism to get your nitrates down and then bring the refugium / algae cultivation back online as part of your ongoing maintenance.

Lastly, I do think there is some possibility of a limited element that may be causing some things not to work as well as they should. If you believe your PO4 tests are correct, then your P04 is most likely not it. However, my PO4 kits would show something as high as 0.05 or 0.10 and I would get a Triton test back with levels of 0.01 to 0.02. Thus, I wouldn't be too trusting of your P04 test kits, but even at super low levels, I have a hard time believing PO4 would be the limiting factor. If it's just the growing of chaeto that concerns you, I wouldn't worry about it. I've had some tanks with plenty of nutrients, dedicated chaeto reactor, plenty of light, and I still couldn't get chaeto to be successful for me (and I've had other tanks or periods in time when I could grow basketball size chunks). I did the dosing iron thing as well. But, as I said before, chaeto might be good to help you with ongoing maintenance, but it's not going to be enough to get you over this hump at this point in time.

Hope that helps!

 

[Brad Waddell Wrath's Reef]

I have not read all the responses, but I had a similar issue, I was using Seachem Nitrite/Nitrate test kit and was getting false readings. I was losing a lot of softies, LPS and SPS. I got the Salifert Nitrate kit and found out my nitrates where around 30. I did water changes and cheato in my refugium, but the best thing I did was Vodka dosing. Takes time and most every thing came back. I am now around 1 nitrate and my corals are doing great.

 

[jsker]

I like the Aquaforest No3 test kits if you can find them. Probably the most accurate I have found so far.

One other suggestion besides the algae scrubber, have you considered run a bio media in your sump such as siprox, life bio til, sacheme matrix with a little zovit? dropped my nitrates when I need to bring my nitrates down.

Nitrates can run high with very little effect in some systems. When the green hair algae start getting out of hand, you know your nitrates are out of control.

I did not see what you're Ca, Mg, alk were running. I might have missed that

 

[Lasse]

0.05 is pretty low phos

If you believe your PO4 tests are correct, then your P04 is most likely not it. However, my PO4 kits would show something as high as 0.05 or 0.10 and I would get a Triton test back with levels of 0.01 to 0.02.

Yea - and the accuracy of a well working Hanna ULR is plus minus 0.02 ppm. Well - working Hanna!!!! I had some problems with my chaeto and corals in my aquarium. My Hanna ULR phosphate (HI774) (new) show around 0.1 ppm. Everything I saw in the aquarium indicate nutrient deficiency of some sort. Send in a TRITON ICP test and it show 0.018 ppm PO4 Start to dose PO4 and shout down my GFO filter. Every thing starts to work again - good growth of both chaeto and corals. cyanobacteria at some places in the aquarium disappear. Last TRITON test show 0.035 ppm and my HI-774 show 0.12 ppm! Today - I aim to read 0.12 - 0.15 with my HI-774

As I said before - only the fact that your massive WC does not impact your NO3 levels indicate that you have something in your water that give a false reading. Do you still dose VIBRANT? Do a dilution test - a dilution test is linear (should be) in order to confirm if your readings is correct. I have seen in many post about VIBRANT that it quickly (in a couple of days) result in high NO3 levels. NO3 can`t be stored in the aquarium - only exist in the water column. All NO3 (if you do not add it by yourself) comes from NH3/NH4 -> NO2 -> NO3 cycle. If you have a huge killing of algae (VIBRANT) - it will be a lot of bacteria that break down this. Using a DOC source (Dissolved Organic Carbon) will speed up this bacteria growth and their release of NH3/NH4 into the water. High organic load (read a huge occurrence of Heterotrophic bacteria) will hinder (mostly by competition for attaching surfaces) the second step (NO2-> NO3) and NO2 will build up in the aquarium. High NO2 concentrations -> false NO3 reading.

First step in a case like this - IMO - check the NO2 level with a fresh test. Remember that every ppm of NO2 in the water will alter your readings of NO3 between 50 to 100 times. If you have 0.1 ppm NO2 in your water - your NO3 test will read between 5 to 10 ppm even if the real NO3 is 0. I have not test with the modern NO3 tests but the old ones could give you a hint if you had NO2 in the water by only use the second step in the analyse. (in that case I test in the stone age - the first step was adding the agent that convert NO3 into NO2 - the second was to analyse the NO2 concentrations - I do not know if it is the same order today - but I think that)

Sincerely Lasse

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Hello all, thanks for all the replies. I'll give you an update and answer some new questions.

#1: I stopped dosing vibrant a while ago as my green algae died and never came back. Other than dark purple/reddish cyano on lots of my rock I have no nuisance algae, even my bubble algae vanished. Just cyano on the surface of my rocks and some detritus in areas deep in the rock caves I can't get to. Cyano also grows in the back wall of tank and I usually get white film from the bacteria (mb7) on the front every 2 days.

#2: I am not sure what to trust with po4 checkers. My hanna showed anywhere from 4-7ppm which based on the conversion was 0.01-0.02. This would explain my cyano as I have a major nutrient imbalance as po4 0.01-02 vs 50 no3 is large.

#3: I did dose very small portions of Iron since posting (1-2 mil every other day) and saw slight reaction from my green acros; might have changed to be slightly darker but not really "better" but a reaction no less.

#4: I am continuing to carbon dose; cyano seems to increase as I dose. I read that mb7 could eventually out compete it and people use it to combat cyano. I am not TOO concerned about the cyano as I know it's from the nutrient imbalance.

#5: I took some advice and dosed po4 but am taking it slow. The one take away is that I feel the no3 test kit is starting to drop but it's hard to tell as the shades were so dark pink but I feel it's getting lighter. PE slightly better on some affected acros. The first time I dosed po4 I tested 2 hours later and got a higher reading, the next day it was back down to 5ppm so I felt it started shrinking again which would backup the theory that I was po4 limited.

My biggest question is whether to continue to dose po4 as my readings are currently at 0.05 and don't seem to be dropping after 24 hours. I am not sure with the accuracy of ULR mixed with age of unit if this is TRULY the case. My other po4 test kits still show clear water after reagents added. I am not sure how quickly I will notice no3 start to drop as po4 is raised.

*NOTE* there isn't a clear sign of ANY green algae to be found anywhere in the tank, I have searched high and low and can't find a single trace of algae.

For the person who asked my params:

CA: 400
Alk: 8.5
Mag: 1250-1290

 

[Thespammailaccount]

The tank seems so unstable. Why not stop carbon dosing and try macro algae? I experimented with carbon dosing on the 10 gallon and ran into several problems