Neglected tank super HIGH nitrate

[smarcuscofer]

I've been having some bad luck with my tank so I kind of give up for a bit like 6 months no cleaning had a fish and some snails and crabs die and algae and cyano took over could even see through the glass so I knew my parameters were gonna be crap.... Any way
Salinity 1.024...dropped from. 026 during neglect
Nitrates. Brace yourself in the 100s
Phosphorus. 3 ppb surprisingly good
Dkh 10 a little high supposed to 8 or 9 using fritz rpm
So I've been slowly raising the salinity I took my ato offline and installed smart awc haven't fired it up yet but I've been adding the EVAP back with 1.026 how should I go about reducing the nitrate that's allot I know it took months to get here probably the same road to get back out big water changes scare me I'm to worried about the dkh and temp being spot on how much water should I be changing a day with awc in a 20 gallon cube to get this correct... I'm pretty sure every one is gonna say 50-80 percent water change I just don't wanna kill my last coral it's been hanging in there for 3 years and six months of that was toilet water practically

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I've been having some bad luck with my tank so I kind of give up for a bit like 6 months no cleaning had a fish and some snails and crabs die and algae and cyano took over could even see through the glass so I knew my parameters were gonna be crap.... Any way
Salinity 1.024...dropped from. 026 during neglect
Nitrates. Brace yourself in the 100s
Phosphorus. 3 ppb surprisingly good
Dkh 10 a little high supposed to 8 or 9 using fritz rpm
So I've been slowly raising the salinity I took my ato offline and installed smart awc haven't fired it up yet but I've been adding the EVAP back with 1.026 how should I go about reducing the nitrate that's allot I know it took months to get here probably the same road to get back out big water changes scare me I'm to worried about the dkh and temp being spot on how much water should I be changing a day with awc in a 20 gallon cube to get this correct... I'm pretty sure every one is gonna say 50-80 percent water change I just don't wanna kill my last coral it's been hanging in there for 3 years and six months of that was toilet water practically

So, your tank alk is slightly higher then what your salt mixes to? If so, then as long as temp is within a degree or three, a large water change is not going to cause any problems with the coral.
It's a 20 gallon tank? If you're really concerned about changing things too fast, then change 5 gallons, test the next day; if nitrates still over 100, change 5 gallons the second day and test on day 3; and so on until your nitrates are between 25 and 50. Then, assuming you're also manually removing as much algae and crud as possible, wait a week and test, then do another 10 - 25% water change depending on the results.

Again, doing a large WC now is not going to hurt anything. (If you want, you can put the coral in a container of old water, and acclimate it to the tank after the large WC...)

I would not rely on AWC to correct this problem. AWC's are useful once everything is stable and where you want it...

 

[smarcuscofer]

So, your tank alk is slightly higher then what your salt mixes to? If so, then as long as temp is within a degree or three, a large water change is not going to cause any problems with the coral.
It's a 20 gallon tank? If you're really concerned about changing things too fast, then change 5 gallons, test the next day; if nitrates still over 100, change 5 gallons the second day and test on day 3; and so on until your nitrates are between 25 and 50. Then, assuming you're also manually removing as much algae and crud as possible, wait a week and test, then do another 10 - 25% water change depending on the results.

Again, doing a large WC now is not going to hurt anything. (If you want, you can put the coral in a container of old water, and acclimate it to the tank after the large WC...)

I would not rely on AWC to correct this problem. AWC's are useful once everything is stable and where you want it...

I need to check my salt mix but yes by what fritz claims I should be 8-9 in my mix but my tank is ten which is weird cuz I haven't messed with it forever but I do need to change the filters in my rodi that could have something to do with it and I also just realized my freaking dkh reagent is out of date I don't know how big a deal that is is a Hannah checker but ya I've been scooping crud with a net my hands scraping and siphoning glass back chambers I need to get some gravel vac done but I had to find the sand first blowing the rocks off changing filter pad allot I kind of figured that awc wouldn't cut it to much diminishing returns I did 2.5 gallon water change yesterday maybe I'll try the 5 test 5 test thanks for your help you kind of confirmed what I was thinking

 

[brandon429]

I have about sixty examples handy of reef tank restoration/deep cleans, let's see which one closes matches your tank

post a pic as it sits now, which is the eutrophic condition

we can change it to oligotrophic/how you want it to look, with 1 rip clean. the reason preserving a coral won't be hard is bc some of our jobs were on ten thousand dollar reef tank setups, with 200 corals.

chemistry isn't what fixes your tank, ordered steps of cleaning and tank takedown/rebuild are what saves it. no calculations needed, simply follow the steps in perfect order and your tank will be skip cycle cleaned.

the way you save the coral is to feed it well afterwards and use light re ramping on the cleaned setup, don't shine your old light back on the tank in full power. start low, then ramp back up to 80% of your current level over two weeks and don't go above 80% for a while: it'll run better this way without bleaching.

the other steps are posts that you read where we cleaned other people's reef tanks then you'd copy those steps on file perfectly, and your tank will be cleaned like the examples were.

 

[smarcuscofer]

I have about sixty examples handy of reef tank restoration/deep cleans, let's see which one closes matches your tank

post a pic as it sits now, which is the eutrophic condition

we can change it to oligotrophic/how you want it to look, with 1 rip clean. the reason preserving a coral won't be hard is bc some of our jobs were on ten thousand dollar reef tank setups, with 200 corals

I have about sixty examples handy of reef tank restoration/deep cleans, let's see which one closes matches your tank

post a pic as it sits now, which is the eutrophic condition

we can change it to oligotrophic/how you want it to look, with 1 rip clean. the reason preserving a coral won't be hard is bc some of our jobs were on ten thousand dollar reef tank setups, with 200 corals.

chemistry isn't what fixes your tank, ordered steps of cleaning and tank takedown/rebuild are what saves it. no calculations needed, simply follow the steps in perfect order and your tank will be skip cycle cleaned.

the way you save the coral is to feed it well afterwards and use light re ramping on the cleaned setup, don't shine your old light back on the tank in full power. start low, then ramp back up to 80% of your current level over two weeks and don't go above 80% for a while: it'll run better this way without bleaching.

the other steps are posts that you read where we cleaned other people's reef tanks then you'd copy those steps on file perfectly, and your tank will be cleaned like the examples were.

Right after I finished my first manual removal of nuisance algae and bacteria I thought to myself I should have taken a picture for before and after I honestly didn't want evidence of my tank looking like that I can send a pic of what it looks like now and give you an idea of the steps I've already taken.... First I pulled my media basket cleaned it and scraped and brushed the first chamber then I pulled my rubble out of the second chamber scraped and brushed same for the return chamber I siphoned all three chamber the best I could without taking more than 2.5 gallons (that's all I was brave enough to change) into a bucket with a filter sock in a bucket then I rinsed my rubble in the old water I put everything back in place changed carbon then I set to cleaning the display lots of scraping brushing scooping blowing I tried not to get in the sand bed to much then I started siphoning into a filter sock sucking up loose debris of the the top of the sand bed and the rocks when the bucket got full I pulled the sock and put the water back in the tank I did that 2 or 3 times until I had it pretty well cleaned on top the sand and rocks I added fresh water put 2 filter pad in and turned it back on I finally got enough junk out of the tank the power head wasn't getting junk in it every 5 minutes and I continued to blow the rocks and sand off with a turkey baster until finally the tank started to look clear again I added 2 cap full of Dr Tim refresh ato is off line and been replacing EVAP with fresh salt water to slowly increase the salinity.... Before picture just imagine slime and algae so bad on the glass you couldn't see anything. Like 2 inches of slime and algae on the sand bed probably quarter inch of junk on the rocks and a jug full of straight brown smelly thick stuff out of the back chambers any who here is an after pic

 

[brandon429]

gosh that's not bad at all. the match on file would be shadow_k's rip clean yours isn't even as bad as his:

before:



one day after:


the way we do that cleaning is to take apart the reef and hold it in sections, animals held in totes of water, as the substrate and tank are cleaned 1000%.

then the rocks are set back into all new water matching temp and salinity of the old water, only those two params. the substrate under those rocks was prep rinsed perfectly, no clouding, via tap water rinsing you can see in the example thread below. that's why the after pics are so bright and clear

you would do the light ramping for the cleaned setup and the tank will be instantly de-aged by how you physically handled it, not by any chemistry tricks.

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[smarcuscofer]

I have about sixty examples handy of reef tank restoration/deep cleans, let's see which one closes matches your tank

post a pic as it sits now, which is the eutrophic condition

we can change it to oligotrophic/how you want it to look, with 1 rip clean. the reason preserving a coral won't be hard is bc some of our jobs were on ten thousand dollar reef tank setups, with 200 corals

I have about sixty examples handy of reef tank restoration/deep cleans, let's see which one closes matches your tank

post a pic as it sits now, which is the eutrophic condition

we can change it to oligotrophic/how you want it to look, with 1 rip clean. the reason preserving a coral won't be hard is bc some of our jobs were on ten thousand dollar reef tank setups, with 200 corals.

chemistry isn't what fixes your tank, ordered steps of cleaning and tank takedown/rebuild are what saves it. no calculations needed, simply follow the steps in perfect order and your tank will be skip cycle cleaned.

the way you save the coral is to feed it well afterwards and use light re ramping on the cleaned setup, don't shine your old light back on the tank in full power. start low, then ramp back up to 80% of your current level over two weeks and don't go above 80% for a while: it'll run better this way without bleaching.

the other steps are posts that you read where we cleaned other people's reef tanks then you'd copy those steps on file perfectly, and your tank will be cleaned like the examples were.

Right after I finished my first manual removal of nuisance algae and bacteria I thought to myself I should have taken a picture for before and after I honestly didn't want evidence of my tank looking like that I can send a pic of what it looks like now and give you an idea of the steps I've already taken.... First I pulled my media basket cleaned it and scraped and brushed the first chamber then I pulled my rubble out of the second chamber scraped and brushed same for the return chamber I siphoned all three chamber the best I could without taking more than 2.5 gallons (that's all I was brave enough to change) into a bucket with a filter sock in a bucket then I rinsed my rubble in the old water I put everything back in place changed carbon then I set to cleaning the display lots of scraping brushing scooping blowing I tried not to get in the sand bed to much then I started siphoning into a filter sock sucking up loose debris of the the top of the sand bed and the rocks when the bucket got full I pulled the sock and put the water back in the tank I did that 2 or 3 times until I had it pretty well cleaned on top the sand and rocks I added fresh water put 2 filter pad in and turned it back on I finally got enough junk out of the tank the power head wasn't getting junk in it every 5 minutes and I continued to blow the rocks and sand off with a turkey baster until finally the tank started to look clear again I added 2 cap full of Dr Tim refresh ato is off line and been replacing EVAP with fresh salt water to slowly increase the salinity.... Before picture just imagine slime and algae so bad on the glass you couldn't see anything. Like 2 inches of slime and algae on the sand bed probably quarter inch of junk on the rocks and a jug full of straight brown smelly thick stuff out of the back chambers any who here is an after pic

gosh that's not bad at all. the match on file would be shadow_k's rip clean yours isn't even as bad as his:

I went hard yesterday it looked like crap before

 

[brandon429]

that is good it will buy you some time before next cleaning round. if you do the disassembly cleaning above then you get longer time in between export jobs. to know if you cleaned well, stick something down into the sandbed and shake it about a little bit, see if a cloud kicks up.

in our work thread above, you can drop entire handfuls of sand in those tanks and not one spec will cloud up, that's how good they were rinsed out.

if you make the tank that clean it will stand out as shockingly clean and instantly perk up.

 

[brandon429]

leaving a small % of waste in the system that was kicked up during cleaning explains your nitrate rise, and that's assuming the test kit is correct (nitrate test kit comparison threads show 100 ppm differences/50 ppm differences sometimes among brands)

a deep cleaning is the right way to de-age a nano reef. a partial cleaning spreads leftover waste around but it does look like you've cleaned it up well

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Don't rip clean
No need

 

[Spare time]

Really the only thing you need to do is just the water change. If you have a skimmer you can carbon dose but make sure not to bottom out phosphates.

 

[KrisReef]

I've been having some bad luck with my tank so I kind of give up for a bit like 6 months no cleaning had a fish and some snails and crabs die and algae and cyano took over could even see through the glass so I knew my parameters were gonna be crap.... Any way
Salinity 1.024...dropped from. 026 during neglect
Nitrates. Brace yourself in the 100s
Phosphorus. 3 ppb surprisingly good
Dkh 10 a little high supposed to 8 or 9 using fritz rpm
So I've been slowly raising the salinity I took my ato offline and installed smart awc haven't fired it up yet but I've been adding the EVAP back with 1.026 how should I go about reducing the nitrate that's allot I know it took months to get here probably the same road to get back out big water changes scare me I'm to worried about the dkh and temp being spot on how much water should I be changing a day with awc in a 20 gallon cube to get this correct... I'm pretty sure every one is gonna say 50-80 percent water change I just don't wanna kill my last coral it's been hanging in there for 3 years and six months of that was toilet water practically

Ok, I understand that you don’t want to do large water changes but can you rethink that and consider “Flushing” the toilet after 6 months?!

Get a Brute trash can or plastic 55 gallon barrel, fill with RODI, add salt, make X and heat. After 24 hours measure the barrel parameters dkh, temp, salinity and make them almost the same as the toilet DT, but closer to ideal parameters (with zero nitrates and) and siphon the dirt and water out of the DT and replace it with the pristine water with almost the same parameters as the DT,-NO3, and your coral will love you and thank you by not dying.

Works every time it’s done ime.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Ok, I understand that you don’t want to do large water changes but can you rethink that and consider “Flushing” the toilet after 6 months?!

Get a Brute trash can or plastic 55 gallon barrel, fill with RODI, add salt, make X and heat. After 24 hours measure the barrel parameters dkh, temp, salinity and make them almost the same as the toilet DT, but closer to ideal parameters (with zero nitrates and) and siphon the dirt and water out of the DT and replace it with the pristine water with almost the same parameters as the DT,-NO3, and your coral will love you and thank you by not dying.

Works every time it’s done ime.

His tank is 20 gallons. Why on earth would he need to mix 50+ gallons of saltwater??

 

[KrisReef]

His tank is 20 gallons. Why on earth would he need to mix 50+ gallons of saltwater??

Me assuming that he was using a 50 gallon bag, and/or that he was trying to maintain stability which is which is easier if you mix many gallons at once so that you have a stable supply going forward (in this case until February 2024.)

Also, when you have a huge mess in the bowl you may want to flush twice to really clean the mess properly?

I get and keep 100 or more gallons of water on hand so in truth I was just projecting with the Brute suggestion. I have had many times where I or someone else needed an emergency water change and having premixed with proper parameters on hand made the situation much less stressful and easier to manage a large water replacement. I am a big believer in having backup water (RODI & Saltmix) stored in my garage for these purposes.

I think it may be overkill for the op.

 

[smarcuscofer]

Thanks for all the responses and helpful info for some reason I stopped getting notifications after rip clean I've been doing weekly 7 gallon water changes for 4 weeks and I've just gotten the nitrates somewhere between 20 and 40i may have been in the 160+on nitrates