Can't bring my nitrates down! Any suggestions?

[stoneriff]

I have a 72 Bow-front Reef/Fish tank. A custom made 20 gallon sump with rubble and Cheato by Custom King. I have a Bermuda skimmer run by an Eheim 1260 pump. Works great! 100 lbs. of great live rock. I use 4" filter socks, which I replace every other day. I have a Mag 7 as my return pump. I have a 48" Maristar 2x250 Metal Halides with 2 48" Actinics. I run a Phosban reactor. I have plenty of coral, 3 small clams, a Foxface, 2 Ocellarus clowns, 2 Sand Sifting Gobies, a Potters Angel, and a Christmas Wrasse. All fish are small. I've cut down my feeding, and I do 20 gallon water changes weekly. I use RO/Di water. I use Tropic Marin Reef salt. Salinity is 1.024. All my parameters are good, except nitrates! I checked today with a Salifert kit, and they were at 5 ppm The only possible culprit is the cheato I added a few weeks ago. Any thoughts?

 

[prattreef]

5 ppm is hardly anything to worry about unless you have high Phosphates too--- together they will equal an algae bloom. IME <10 ppm Nitrate alone = happy corals.

 

[Scion_TC2005]

I have a 72 Bow-front Reef/Fish tank. A custom made 20 gallon sump with rubble and Cheato by Custom King. I have a Bermuda skimmer run by an Eheim 1260 pump. Works great! 100 lbs. of great live rock. I use 4" filter socks, which I replace every other day. I have a Mag 7 as my return pump. I have a 48" Maristar 2x250 Metal Halides with 2 48" Actinics. I run a Phosban reactor. I have plenty of coral, 3 small clams, a Foxface, 2 Ocellarus clowns, 2 Sand Sifting Gobies, a Potters Angel, and a Christmas Wrasse. All fish are small. I've cut down my feeding, and I do 20 gallon water changes weekly. I use RO/Di water. I use Tropic Marin Reef salt. Salinity is 1.024. All my parameters are good, except nitrates! I checked today with a Salifert kit, and they were at 5 ppm The only possible culprit is the cheato I added a few weeks ago. Any thoughts?

Your good, 5ppm is nothing to worry about. I have had a 30 gallon reef loaded with corals and few small fish, nitrates fluxed around 5 to 20 ppm (depending when I did a water change) and all corals were super healthy and growing. 5 is nothing to worry about, the more you focus and perfect water parameters it kinda takes away of actually enjoying your aquarium and the hobby itself.

 

[stoneriff]

I may be having trouble reading this new Salifert test kit. It may read 25 ppm.

 

[Josh]

What kind of sand bed do you have? How long has the tank been running?

 

[stoneriff]

I have a live deep sand bed. 3-4". The tank is 6 months old, but was started with established 8 year old live rock.

 

[h20 freak]

Is anything wet/dry?As in it has water trickling over it rather then in being fully submerged or fully dry.

 

[masterswimmer]

Jesse, as those before me have stated, .5 nitrates is great. You will NEVER get that to zero. Don't worry about it. You're doing things really well. Keep up on those water changes and pruning your chaeto when it grows and you'll keep it as low as possible.

Russ

 

[stoneriff]

Nothing is wet/dry. No bio-balls, etc.

 

[stoneriff]

Thanks for the advice Russ. I'll keep checking on the chaeto.