nitrates driving me crazy

Discussion in 'Water Chemistry' started by TBELT, Jan 18, 2010.

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  1. ZachB

    ZachB Giant Squid

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    No. I've heard bio-balls produce nitrates, but when you stack live rock rubble up in your sump I can't imagine it not trapping detritus too. Actually, I know it does, because I have a bunch of live rock rubble in my sump, and it has detritus in there. I imagine it is contributing to nitrates just as much as bio balls do. I've put a powerhead in my sump and it seems to be keeping the amount of detritus down and the water clarity isn't affected at all. Skimmer seems to have produced more gritty, nasty skimmate over the last week too so I think the powerhead helps.

    Nitrates still through the roof though. I had a piece of LR with a small twig sticking out of it which I removed today (one of my original pieces of LR, always though it looked cool)- the twig may have been breaking down and producing nitrates, so we'll see if it helps.
     
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  3. TBELT

    TBELT Ritteri Anemone

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    I did another 8 gallon change and let the pumps run and retested. Low and behold the Nitrates dropped. For the first time in a while the tesr resuly was more orange with no trace of red. Maybe in even a little tint of yellow so they have started to come down. I am mixing more salt and will do another change in the am and have my wife retest tomorrow night. Maybe just maybe all these water changes and cleaning of the rock have worked. Keep your fingers crossed.::)
     
  4. coylee_17

    coylee_17 Fire Goby

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    You could try a little larger water changes, I figured if you had 5 gallons in your sump, 8 gal is only about 13%, just for numbers sake. If you had 50ppm nitrates and did a 20% water change, your nitrates should go down 20%, or 10 ppm. But if you did two 10% water changes you would only go down 9.5ppm (10% of 50, so now at 45ppm, and then 10% of that). I hope this makes sense, I'm half asleep lol.
     
  5. TBELT

    TBELT Ritteri Anemone

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    It does but I have been afraid of doing big water changes. Maybe 10 gallons tomorrow and a bigger one this weekend when I get in. Spending the next week in Ft. Myers and Naples so I will be out until Friday.
     
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  6. coylee_17

    coylee_17 Fire Goby

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    Best of luck with it. Hopefully you got it going in the right direction now.
     
  7. TBELT

    TBELT Ritteri Anemone

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    I hope so. Thanks
     
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  9. wfb2270

    wfb2270 Corkscrew Tentacle Anemone

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    if you thought the red to orange was hard wait till you try to go to the yellow:). i recently just finished my battle with high nitrates, it was from a "used" tank as well. you migh want to consider trying some chemi-pure elite. it dropped mine down to zero after i fought it down to about 20.
     
  10. TBELT

    TBELT Ritteri Anemone

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    Do you have to keep dosing to keep them down?
     
  11. Screwtape

    Screwtape Tonozukai Fairy Wrasse

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    Live rock produces nitrates too, any surface that nitrifying (mostly aerobic) bacteria can inhabit will produce nitrates if there is an ammonia source.
    The thing with live rock is that it can also contain low oxygen areas (usually deeper within porous live rock AFAIK) where the denitrifying bacteria can inhabit which would help balance things out. I think this is less likely with rubble though due to the small size. I'm not sure I see much difference between bioballs and rubble for that purpose, except some little critters may populate the rubble area and munch on trapped detritus etc where they might not inhabit bioballs. That might more efficiently break down the nutrients.

    That's my understanding of it anyway.
     
  12. wfb2270

    wfb2270 Corkscrew Tentacle Anemone

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    no, i dont dose anyting (yet, still in the early stages of reefing) chemi-pure is a filter media not a "additive". keep my trace elements up by water changes.