Unresolved Nitrate going crazy!!

Hello everyone. My mother in law was taking care of my two tanks while i was away for two weeks and i think she was over feeding. One tank is a 40gallon with a 20 gallon refugium that houses a 6 inch porcupine puffer and a christmas wrasse i have a skimmer and uv sterilizer and only use live rock about 80 lbs as well as chaeto and calurpa in entire system i have done water changes every day and can not get my nitrates below 80 i only feed once a day and have even taken my fuge and cleaned out all my detritis. My other tank is a little over poplulated reef and have never had an issue until now this also has a fuge. I religiously do water changes everyday and am just stumped on what else to do. Both tanks have clean up crew and havebt lost anything in almost a year. Please help!!

 

I think that the water changes are your only option at this point. Try to do as large as you can....how deep is your sand bed?

 

I think one problem is both tansk are overstocked, with the 6inchpuffer being in a 40gal with a xmas wrasse and the other being what you are calling "little overpopulated reef".

How much food, is you skimming pulling any gunk out, RO water or tap???

How are your other parameters?

 

Sand bed is about 3inches. I use ro/Di water I feed very slow so they eat as much as possible the reef tank is a 55 gallon with a 20 gal refugium about 90 lbs of live rock in entire system. The skimmer pulls scum out but not a lot at All on both tanks I even have cleanup crew in the refugiums

 

The other water parameters are normal 1.022 on the puffer tank and 1.024 on reef
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:0
Ph:8

 

Try a new nitrate test kit yours may have gone bad. Test your RODI water also. Blow the detritus off of your DT rocks and siphon the water from the DT to get as much of it out as possible.

 

Second getting a new nitrate test kit. As always, if something in your system is out of whack your tank will talk to you. Either with dead corals and inverts, funny acting fish, or excessive algae growth

 

What would you recommend as far as how big of a water change would be safe?

 

25-30% water change should be safe...and as 2 in 10 said, try to blow off as much detritrus as possible.....

 

Just keep doing the water changes until it goes down. However, unless you plan on getting a 200+ tank very soon you'll have to get rid of the puffer.