paramiters all out of wack! need help fast

Here is the lay out.

Nitrite = 0
nitrate =80 - 100 (here is the problem)
ammonia = 0
phosphate = in tank 1.0 / fresh from ro/di = 0 (tested twice each way)
DKh=7
PH = 8.3

My tank is 65 gallon with live rock and the following fish. has been established for over 1 year.

2 clowns (1.5")
1 six line wrasse (1")
1 fox face (3.5")
1 blue hippo tang (2")
several snails and blue leg hermit crabs, 1 cleaner shrimp, 2 emerald crabs and one sand sifting star fish.

I feed them one to two times a day about one cube of home made food. the cubes are about a 1/2" square if that helps.

I am making a fresh batch of saltwater now to do a 30 - 40% change. What do you think is causing this problem with Nitrate?

Why is the in tank phosphate 1.0 but fresh from the RO/DI it is 0?

any help is appreciated!

 

If the Ro/Di water is 0 in nitrate and 0 in phosphate, then it is coming from something you are adding. I would say it's probably the food. Is it one cube per day, or per feeding? I would do a 20% water change, you don't want to do anything too drastic yet. Has the nitrate problem just come up, or has it been slowly climbing?

 

I noticed it climbing slowly over the last month. One thing I did start two weeks ago was feeding frozen vegie cubes every other day. I have not feed the fish in over 24 hours and that was the readings above. I do think over feeding could be the problem but the phosphate difference is confusing me. I did not check nitrate from the ro/di I guess I will do that now and get back with that.

 

+1 on above
in addition the filtration system details would be useful? and what skimmer?
the nitrates - there are different species of bacteria involved in the nitrogen cycle
and it may be you have adequate species of the oyygen breathing species (several) that convert Am to Ni and Nitrite to Nitrate - but not enough Anearobic species that convert Nitrate to Nitrogen ( any DSB, fuge etc)

so a breif description of your filter set up may help

Steve

 

Okay nitrate from RO/Di tested at 0.

 

The filtration is not to good or as good as a fuge it is a sea clear system 2 which uses a filter pad and bio balls. The protein skimmer is a piece of junk that is just doing enough to get by till I switch to my 240 gallon. I have never cleaned the bio balls do you think I should try that? I do clean the filter pad once a week and replace it with a new one every two months.

 

How much live rock do you have?

 

clean them, definitely
in fact I may get shouted at for this but

I (Steve Wright) would throw them away and do a 20% water change afterwards and then post your new nitrate levels - they will be a lot lower IMHO and IMHE

Im not suggesting you go to this extreme - Im just saying I did that once and everything survived and my nitrates went below 10 from 80 in a 2 week period

a thorough clean would be a good 1st choice

if you have the skimmer that you intend to use on the 240 ? may be a good idea to bring it on line for the 65

Steve

 

Mix of the skimmer and being pretty heavily stocked.
Cut your feeding in half. Add an air stone. Do the 30% WC. Could possibly dose with prime as well.
One thing you could try, for the time being: Is it possible to plumb in the totally awesome skimmer for your 240 you have laying around?

 

I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but I wanted to know how much live rock he had first to make sure that the bacteria population isn't depleted too quickly.