Nitrate Help!!

I'm having trouble controling my nitrates. I have a 55gal tank with 65lbs of live rock, two wishper 30-60 filters a biowheel and a carbon canister filter. I have maybe ten different corals, and ten fish (two yellow tail damsels, two black and white damsels, three clown fish, two dark blue damsels, and one trigger fish) the tank has been runing for months and I bought it about 2 weeks ago. Everything is looking good but I had the water tested yesterday and all was fine besides nitrates. They are very high. I feed my fish once a day(two brine shrimp cubes) how can I lower my nitrates and stop them from being so high? Water change is what I've been told by the fish store, they said about 25-30 gallons I will do so tomorrow unless any other ideas

 

wait for a more experienced individual - im pretty new to this, but this is what i would do:

1) 10% water change immediately
2) Siphon up any visible detritus waste
3) Turn off the mechanical filtration and clean it all out (NOT THE BIOWHEEL ITSELF THOUGH)
4) Remove any stagnant waste from the carbon canister filter
5) Wait 6 hours and retest your nitrates
6) After 24 hours of the 10% change of water do another.

Also:

- whats your normal maintenance scheduled water changes?
- how much substrate do you have and what kind?
- how longs the tank been established?
- what are the actual tested parameters of the tank at this moment (PH, SG, NO2, NO3, KH, CA mainly)?
- do the fish actually eat BOTH cubes of brine shrimp? it might be a good idea to reduce your feeding habit to every other day until you figure out where your nitrate factory is in the tank. my guess its within the canister filtration somewhere

 

Water changes will help for a short term fix, however we need to find what the cause of the nitrate is and stop that. 2 things stand out to me as possible causes or factors. 1. your filters- do you clean then regular? if not they will add nitrate to your tank as fast as you can remove it with water changes. they are doing there job but in a saltwater tank if not clean regular they will frustrate you. 2. Brine shrimp cubes- if you thaw them and dump all the water into the tank, then you are adding all the junk that was frozen in with the brine shrimp. you definitely need to thaw them and rinse them before putting them into your tank. Also you might want to cut back on your feedings to every other day. also do you have a protein skimmer on your tank, because that is also needed. that will help remove the dissolved organics from the water which can also break down into nitrate.

 

I agree to everything bje said. Definitely cut back on your feedings! Fish (especially the ones you listed) can go a couple days without eating and be perfectly fine. You only have about 15 more gallons than my system and I feed 1/2 cube of brine every other day. I would cut back to one cube every other day as a start and see if you notice a difference. You may already do this..but when you feed don't just dump it in all at once. Add a little bit at a time so most of it gets consumed.

Ivan

 

Every two weeks is my plan so I'm getting ready for my first water change of the tank.
Not much if any at all is floating in the water it looks pretty clean.
As for the exact testing levels I had them checked at the fish store and they did use one of the stick testers and everything was said to be normal besides the high nitrate.
The tank was set up also 10 months to a year before I got it.
The tiggerfish seems to eat most of the food shrimp I put in and the others don't leave much if any.
I haven't check the canister filter so that could be what may be causing some nitrate.?

 

don't have a protein skimmer!

 

Depending how large those fish are you're potentially overstocked especially since you didn't mention any form of nutrient export (skimmer, refugium etc).

All of those filters are not good forms of export. I would consider ditching all of them except the carbon. They're mostly mechanical filtration (removing solids from the water) and biological filtration (converting ammonia to nitrites then to nitrates). Most of your biological filtration will happen in your rock so the filters and biowheel aren't really necessary. Mechanical filtration is usually not needed, especially if you have a skimmer, and actually can be a source of nitrates unless you clean them out regularly.

I would consider removing the trigger at least since it will outgrow the tank eventually anyway. Also look into getting a skimmer or setting up a refugium as a means for exporting nutrients from the water.

On a side note brine shrimp is not usually the most nutritious food, I would consider at least rotating with other types of food like mysis/high quality pellets.

 

If it were me, I would completely remove the whisper filters. Get a good protein skimmer. Also, I would feed a mixture of foods. HQ pellet and flake. Unless you are soaking the brine in garlic or selcon or some kind of vitamin enrichment then the brine isn't providing much nutrients.

 

As far as protein skimmers go, anything is better then nothing or what kind would I need.
I'm gonna cut back on feeding, clean filters, and canister filter.
water change of...... How much?
The fish in the tank not to big the trigger isn't to much bigger just big enough to run the tank.


So Far this has helped alot!!!

 

What type of trigger fish is it? He's going to think hes died and gone to heaven soon, when he realises how nice all that lovely coral tastes!!
What type of media do people suggest to run in the canister filter, and how often do you clean it? The reason I ask is Im using an eheim pro II to power a fluidised phosphate reactor & Sand filter. I also have it fitted to a fluval surface skimmer to clear the surface. I also have a lot of live rock, corals and inverts, with a large clean up crew. & and fish.