Need help lowering my nitrate level

Hi everyone. I am new to this forum as well as to reef aquariums. I have a problem with the nitrate level that I'm afraid will end up killing all my hard corals. This is my story:

I had purchased two aquariums two weeks ago and combined them into one. One was an established 45 gal hex with 13 nice pieces or coral, and miniatus grouper, and a zebra eel. I has about 75 lbs of live rock and 40 or so lbs of crushed coral. Owner was using a canister filter and overhang protein skimmer. Advid hobbyist for 20 years and just quiting. Now, the second tank is a 90 gal rectangle, mainly a FOWLR. This owner had upgraded from a 30 gal to this 90 gal just 3-4 months ago. Has had the same fish for over 3 years. His livestock included a med yellow tang, med sailfin tang, med foxface, sm. to med copper banded butterfly, mated pair of percula clowns, mandarin goby, red reef shrimp, blenny, and about 100 lbs of live rocks on live sand. His tank was reef ready. There is a 20 gal plexiglass sump underneath w/ a decent size protein skimmer that sits in there. Again, all was controlled when he had it. So what I did was combined all the rocks and livestock into the 90 gal, mixed half of the crushed coral from the 45 gal into it and mainly use the existing equip of the 90 gal. I also have two koralia 4 fans in it. Since day one, my ammonia and nitrites has been trace with the nitrates near the 30's and 40's. I introduced 6 med-lg turbos snails in there 3 days later and found them dying one by one a day or two later. I thought the butterfly was eating them. Got water checked by a LFS on day 5 and was told ammonia was a little more than trace along with nitrite but nitrate at 50. Stupid me introduced a xenia frag I got from a friend on day 7 and it died w/in 2 days. Did not take it out b/c I though it may come back. Did another water test on day 9 and was told ammonia high along with nitrites and nitrate near the 80's. Did a recommended 30% water change the next day along with vacuuming some of the crush coral. Got all the levels down to normal except the nitrate has shot up to over 100(around 160 or so). Been trying to research everything possible to get it down as fast as possible. Been doing Vodka dosing since day 10 to now(day13). Got some baby mangroves into the sump as well. Probably will get some Cheato this week. Been monitoring the nitrates and it's still around the 100 range. I don't know how to tell if the corals are suffering or not. I took out my large green favia and another one that looked like it wasn't holding up too well and stored it in a five gallon bucket with fresh saltwater and a powerhead. Will they be okay there for a few days? I was planning on getting rid of all my crushed coral and introducing 150lbs of live sand from someone selling there tank and possibly using all of there water assuming all the levels are low. I'm still a little iffy about doing all this because all the fish are fine as well as some of the coral, and I also see some baby coral spourting out of the live rocks. So, I don't know if I should just keep trying to treat the nitrate since some new coral are growing. Maybe use AZ-NO3? Can someone tell me how long corals can sustain this high nitrate level, and is it bad to do a complete water change using some elses water even if it is of good quality? Sorry for such a long write up. If someone has any clue as to what is going on with my tank and what to do to remedy some of the issues, then please let me know. Thanks for all you help and suggestions in advance.

Vu

 

Hi, you are probably at your limit as far as load goes. The tank is cycling. It doesn't matter what Ammonia and Nitrite is reading right now the Nitrate is telling the story. That is a lot to combine all at once, it matters not where it all came from or how long the other tanks were established. The proper approach would have been to set up the 90 gal. with the fish (although that would be a chancy thing) and let the tank cycle completely and season for 3-4 months before starting to introduce the coral a couple at a time.
Well.....That hasn't happened so let's move on. You are getting some kind (source) of die off from the merging of the tanks. Do not do excessive water changes, this will only make matters worse. Add live bacteria at double the marine dose, wait 2 days and add another double dose. This will bolster the biological filtration to assist in breaking down the nitrate. Some coral can't take the high nitrate so add some quality carbon to aid in cleaning up the water. The AZ-NO3 may have to be employed to get a handle on this. Halimeda is a good choice to add to the sump. Only feed your fish every three days for now and sparingly at that. Hope it all works out.

 

Thanks for the advice. Man... it's gonna bet tough seeing the fish go without food that long, but it's gotta be done. I will see if my LFS has some live bacteria for sale. Where should I apply the carbon? Just fill up a mesh bag and place it in the sump? Also, should I continue with the Vodka dosing?

 

I see that there is many layered problems here. First. mixing all the substrates and tank interchanging has caused a cycle. Only time will help that, it needs to establish itself. Second, IMHO you are WELL overstocked. If I read your post correctly, you have a 90 gallon with a grouper, eel, 2 tangs, a foxface, a butterfly, a pair of clowns, a mandarin, and a blenny, correct? That is a lot of big fish between the butterfly, grouper (which will outgrow a 90 pretty quickly) tangs and foxface.
If it were me, I would stop with all the dosing, water changes, carbon, etc. The tank needs to catch up to itself, and all that stuff is only going to prolong the problem. I would also look into getting rid of some of the bigger fish.

 

I'm already thinking about getting rid of the grouper and possibly the butterfly since I heard that one may not be reef safe. Which ones should I keep and which ones should I get rid of? Is there a safe limit as to the number of coral or does that only hold true for fish?

 

I would trust the copper band more than that eel or foxface If it were me I would ditch the eel and grouper first. Chances are eventually that you are going to wake up to no clowns and a fat eel down the road anyways, and clowns make an awfully expensive fish food.
Corals you can go wild with, they wont contribute to the waste load.

 

Then that's what I'll do. I'll get rid of the grouper and foxface first. I gotta get the eel somehow b/c he loves to hide inside the rocks and it's hard to get to him. Thanks for the advice.

 

The carbon can be used in a reactor (better utilization) or in the bag in the sump. I am not comfortable with the vodka, I have read up on it and there are some undesirable side effects.
One more thing, don't beat yourself up over this, hey, I have been at this for over 20 years and believe me I had made many, many mistakes through ignorance (lack of proper research), impatience and sometimes even arrogance (defying sound judgement and advice). Live and learn and keep up on all your parameters i.e. Mag, Alk, PH, SG and Calc, these are important for the coral health.

 

Ohh....BTW, what should I do with the two corals that I have in the bucket that I tried to quarantine from the whole nitrate mess? Should I just add them back in or should I keep them out for as long as possible? I was told by my LFS that the high nitrate will not kill them. It will just hurt them and make them lose color until the problem is solved. What do you think? Thanks again for the sound advice.

 

Try to keep them out until nitrate is reduced to 40 ppm-20 ppm. If your tank water is at proper parameters i.e SG, PH, Mag, Alk and Calc then just make sure there is circulation in the bucket and oxygen and every 5 days or so take out some of the water from the bucket and add water from the tank. You will of course need to top off the tank with RO/DI (if available).