Hi, I recently moved my fish and rock and coral from an established (3 year old) 20-gallon tank to a 70 gallon display + 20 gallon sump. I did not move my sand. I had a fair amount of livestock and coral for a 20g but for my new tank it looks pretty sparse. I put in Carabsea Arag-alive sand and I put in a bunch of new dry rock in my display and sump. In my small tank I had been dosing NOPOX to keep my nitrates and phosphates low (1 and 0.03) respectively. New tank has been up and running 3 weeks. I am not dosing anything. Phosphates = 0.06 and nitrates = 16. Nitrates too high? Too early to dose anything? KH =8 and Calc = 400. I am doing a 1 gallon per day water change. I have a big Octo skimmer and I have an algae reactor that has not sprouted any algae yet. I have filter socks that I change 2x per week.
High nitrates after tank upgrade - please help
- Thread starter Dave Reef
- Start date
Why did you keep nitrates so low in the last tank? Nitrates at 15ppm is what I usually aim for. I don’t see to much of a problem. Where your corals thriving with 1ppm nitrate in the 20 gallon?
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2020
- Messages
- 301
- Reaction score
- 498
- Review score
- +0 /0 /-0
- Location
- Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
New dry rock, if it wasn't properly cured, can emit lots of stuff into the water, including nitrates/phosphates. It's not too early to start carbon dosing if that's what you were doing in the previous tank. That or BioPellets would probably do a good job of reducing nutrients. It could also be that your algae reactor is undersized, but I have no clue. I primarily use Algae Scrubbers for nutrient export now.
I wouldn't try to to anything special for nitrate yet in this tank.
You're welcome.
Happy reefing.
Happy reefing.
Similar threads
