New Led fixture and NItrates

MY MOntiporas were not looking great so I thought it was too much lighting. I was coming from 2 150 watt DE 14K MH bulbs to now a Maxspect Razor 160watt fixture. I tested the water and it says about 20 nitrates according to API test. All I added was the lighting and 2 powerheads 3 weeks ago. Can the LED Lighting cause the nitrates? I did use about 3/4 of a 2 ounce bottle of Aiptasia X for Aiptasia over a 3 day period. Can this cause it???

 

No LED's do not contribute to nitrates.

As posted in the previous thread by a couple LED users, the change in your Montipora is photoshock from the lighting change and you need to acclimate your corals further by dimming your fixture.

Yes you probably did over do it with the Apitasia X.

You're using an API test kit, values are prone to inconsistency with that brand of kit.

Moved to-------General Reef Topics, please post in the right forum. ASAP is used for emergency situations.

 

The additioanl powerhead stirred up the detritus. Could that have caused the nitrates to go from 0 to 20?

 

That could do Adam

I have had 0 trates according to Salifert for a couple of years

had to do some re aquascaping 2 weekends ago to remove a rock at the base of my reef with GSP remnants on it

this resulted in some disturbance of sand bed combined with cloudy tank from detritus in the rock that escaped as I lifted it from my tank and test kit gave me a reading of somewhere between 0 and 5 (educated guess was 3ppm)

within 1 week it had zero'd out again (carbon doser)

thus the new power heads may have stirred up the sand bed and or settled crud on rockwork and it is this that could be giving you the trate reading and could also be the cause of some of the STN you experienced ( may not be attributable to the lighting)

Steve

 

I was going to buy Red Sea NO3O4X Reducer. Will this get the number down faster than water changes alone?

 

Adam,

With the new on set of a mildly elevated nitrate level of 20 I would first do a water change and recheck in a few days and see if the level comes down, before I would add any types of products to the tank.

 

I did a 20% change today, HOw often should I keep doing water changes to get the 20 down to 0?