premilove

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my nitrate levels are extremely high close to 40 ppm! ammonia is still visible 0 - .25


what can i do to lower nitrate levels?! i have no fish in the tank.. all i have are over 20 morphs of zoanthids and a bunch of blue leggers and turbos..


i have been doing my weekly water change, i use oceanic salt mix..

could it be my source of filtration? i am using a emperor 280.. my aqua line skimmer broke so i am using my pos jebo.

please help!
 

cowfish

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Double check your test results. If this is NOT a new tank and you still get toxic readings I'd do a 30% water change and replace or remove the filter cartridge from the Emperor. Add fresh carbon and a polyfilter pad when possible. Then look in the tank and try to find the source of the ammonia. A snail or some such may have died (which shouldn't have a huge impact unless the tank is small or relatively new.)

If this IS a new tank (less than 6 weeks old) then you probably rushed things, overstocked and outpaced your bio-filtration. In which case you still need to do a water change (the first of many if you're going to save your corals).
 

KathyC

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Do the largest water change that you possibly can, and do see if you find any critter that might have died. Whatever filter/skimmer or whatever you are using is not the cause of your ammonia.
If you added rocks 4 weeks ago, the ammonia would not still be a result of that addition, it is too long ago (and I'd like to assume you have gotten zero ammonia readings during that time)

If you do a 30% water change, you will still have 70% of the ammonia left in the tank.
You basically need to do a total water change IMO. The change itself, will NOT produce any sort of a cycle.


..oh, and did you run the test twice or just once? If once, rerun it please.
 

marrone

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If you added new LR a month ago, and it wasn't cured, you would expect the bio-filteration would have converted the additional ammonia into nitrates. In such a small tank the LR, and a lack of a skimmer, wouldn't be able to remove all the additional nitrates, so you'll need to do some water change until you bring the nitrates down. At that point your LR should take over. As mention it would be good to add a skimmer.
 

premilove

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i am using RO water with Oceanic salt..

as for the critters go, it must be almost impossible for me to look around for a dead snail with out moving my rock..is there any other way? would another critter eat the dead one?

a lot of people have told me that aqua C remoras are not that good where as many ppl told me they are the best. the ones who look down at remoras all told me to get a octopus hang on back skimmer..

http://anythingsaltwater.com/octopus-hang-on-the-back-protein-skimmer-bh100-p-1514.html

have you guys heard anything bad about these skimmers?

a bag of ammonia chips will increase my nitrates as well right?
 

tosiek

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You would see signs of ammonia through the corals health and the inverts health. Also, are you reading the kit right? People tend to time the kit wrong or have an old ammonia kit that they are using and its showing a wrong reading.

Remember that it could also be built up dietrius and crap behind all that rock that im sure isn;t getting alot of flow to keep those area's clean. Spreading out your rockwork helps and giving it good flow.
 

premilove

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i got 3 power heads running in this tank. 2 koralia # 1s and an aqua clear 30..i guess i can try to re-angle them
 

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