nitrate 160ppm

[pulpfiction1]

Myself I would have no issues with doing 50 percent water changes weekly until it was under control

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[AdInfinitum]

Myself I would have no issues with doing 50 percent water changes weekly until it was under control

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+ 1 50% water changes are no issue at all but be prepared for the nitrates to bounce right back up for quite some time.  There is a good possibility that they have been high in the system for years.

The good news is that high nitrates are not an issue for most commonly kept fish and many softies.  Keep them and enjoy them as you gradually get the tank and your skills ready for it hard stuff.

 

[pulpfiction1]

Exactly but if he having high nitrate the bacteria must be very well established

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[pulpfiction1]

I haven't really followed this thread but I'll lay odds once he first set it up .he had ammonia spike  through the roof and that would explain the Death he had

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[AdInfinitum]

I haven't really followed this thread but I'll lay odds once he first set it up .he had ammonia spike  through the roof and that would explain the Death he had

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Absolutely... and disturbing an old sandbed releases hydrogen sulphide and other toxic compounds sequestered by the bacteria in the anoxic area.

 

[pulpfiction1]

personally i would of passed on all the substrate and the water,gone with fresh made water,the rock was apparently healthy,he would of had a minimal cycle and everything should of survived

 

[Thanh]

160 ppm nitrates isn't that bad... there are more worse problems in your tank then just nitrates. with 5 dead fish,u will have a huge ammonia spike . so in the mean time u should do 30 gallons water change (R/O water not  tap water) every 2day and retest everything at the end of the week...

 

[mig]

I've been running Nitra guard now for a couple weeks. The Nitra Guard starts off white and looks like Styrofoam chunks,  is now turning dark red. I've heard it should change black before it starts working so not sure if red is a normal phase. My Nitrates are still high, although maybe slightly better than before. I'm guessing between 80-160 on my API kit. Still doing 20g water changes once a week. I know more g and more often would be ideal but without my own RODI its not convenient. I have an RODI from BRS sitting in port huron, just got to find time to go get it. Fish, Corals, snails, crabs, all seem very healthy. PH, Nitrites, ammonia, salt are all where they should be.

 

[pulpfiction1]

20g a week on your system is like pissing on a forest fire

 

[reeffreak]

I know it's to late for this comment, but for anyone who reads this and plans to move an established tank and is newer to saltwater. Taking existing water from the tank and setting up a short term QT tank at its new home is the best idea. Putting no livestock in jeopardy, for the extra cost of the QT it's a wash when you keep the fish and coral alive.

No offence to the OP but it's always disturbing to me to read these kind of threads about fish loss, it's always preventable.

 

[mig]

I know it's to late for this comment, but for anyone who reads this and plans to move an established tank and is newer to saltwater. Taking existing water from the tank and setting up a short term QT tank at its new home is the best idea. Putting no livestock in jeopardy, for the extra cost of the QT it's a wash when you keep the fish and coral alive.

No offence to the OP but it's always disturbing to me to read these kind of threads about fish loss, it's always preventable.

I agree that hind site is 20/20 this would have been a good PM procedure. The problem was buying at the auction we buy today.. tank has to be gone tomorrow.. very little planning time. As I mentioned I did have an experienced reefer help me.. I believe if I had 10 different experienced helpers each one would have a different idea how to go about this and I probably still have a varying degree of loss or problems. Being completely new to salt water I certainly didn't know myself so I totally depended on his knowledge to get this done. With what I know now I would have done things a lot different but live and learn and move forward.

 

[reeffreak]

[quote author=reeffreak link=topic=8201.msg91636#msg91636 date=1398525378]
I know it's to late for this comment, but for anyone who reads this and plans to move an established tank and is newer to saltwater. Taking existing water from the tank and setting up a short term QT tank at its new home is the best idea. Putting no livestock in jeopardy, for the extra cost of the QT it's a wash when you keep the fish and coral alive.

No offence to the OP but it's always disturbing to me to read these kind of threads about fish loss, it's always preventable.

I agree that hind site is 20/20 this would have been a good PM procedure. The problem was buying at the auction we buy today.. tank has to be gone tomorrow.. very little planning time. As I mentioned I did have an experienced reefer help me.. I believe if I had 10 different experienced helpers each one would have a different idea how to go about this and I probably still have a varying degree of loss or problems. Being completely new to salt water I certainly didn't know myself so I totally depended on his knowledge to get this done. With what I know now I would have done things a lot different but live and learn and move forward.
[/quote]

Welcome to the hobby, after everything settles down for you and you get on the right track, you will truly really fall in love with this hobby. The hard work and dedication towards tank maintenance shows amazing end results.

Back to the tank, I know you said larger water changes aren't an option but I would make then an option ASAP, the longer the tank stay high in nitrates the worst off things will be. Personally I would add some bio pellets to help with nitrates, but then of course you would need a good quality skimmer, these two things will drastically help in reducing nitrates,  as long as you read up on pellets and don't start to strong, along with large water changes twice a week your tank should be rocking and rolling in a couple months with strict WC schedules.

Best of luck to you.

 

[pulpfiction1]

i would use some prime to keep the tank safe,prepare for a massive (min 50%) waterchange to at least get the nitrates readable on his test kit at the very least to be sure what the actual levels are.
doin 20% weekly is a waste of time with that tank being 160ppm+ nitrates.he says 90g with MAYBE a 25g lower which is a sump i assume.50 gallon water change should show what the level is hopefully,then i would follow up with another a week later if not sooner untill reasonable levels are reached.some work now will pay off later and you will be able to build your system into what your wanting

good luck and welcome to the hobby and this forum

 

[mig]

I'm happy to report my nitrates are finally coming down. Hard to get an exact number off the API test kit with matching the colour method however my nitrates are maybe down to 20. Still work to do but came a long way from 160+, very refreshing to see it coming down. I'm running 2 nitra guard bombs as well as water changes once to lately twice a week since I now have my own RODI water. PH, nitrites, ammonia, salt levels are excellent. All in the tank seems healthy except my one coral seems to be britle and loosing alot of stems however, when they break off, they fall and start growing as a new frags so i may be over run with these things eventurally.

 

[TORX]

Great to hear. Always nice to see a tank come around.

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[RYOUNVS]

Happy to read this Mig! Yay!!! FRAGS FRAGS FRAGS!!!

 

[AdInfinitum]

Good news! 

A lot of work but really a quick turnaround.

 

[mig]

Nitrates are now pretty much at zero so yah!!! I would probably have to give most the credit to the Nitra guard bombs Ive been running what brought them down so definitely a great product along with many water changes. I do find I have a lot of green algae growing in the tank so I'm looking for some solutions to get that cleaned up. I have lots of crabs, snails and an algae blemmy and I've cut my my lights to about 7 hours a day but algae continues to be an issue. Also, in my sump I get a lot of crap build up on the bottom. I cleaned it all out maybe 6 weeks ago and its built up again quite bad. Time for more research... Thanks for all the help so far..

 

[Pistol]

PO4 could be an issue, not sure if you have a test kit for them but if your not running anything to remove them then they are probably high as well.

 

[mig]

PO4 could be an issue, not sure if you have a test kit for them but if your not running anything to remove them then they are probably high as wel

PO4? I dont know what that is. What would i run to remove it?