yikes heavy nitrates reeked havic in my reef
 

Between my 3 tanks and the sump I have 240 gallons of water capacity, I did water changes of 10% x4 in the last 5 days which equals roughly 80+ gallons so hopefully with my new skimmer and these multiple water changes my system can now cope with the nitrate problems caused by my previous skimmer failing. Any ideas? Should I do more water changes this week as well? I lost a few pieces to RTN and a lot of corals are either bleached or browned out. Damn nitrates:twised: I would hope my system can handle the load now but am looking for some input.

Nitrates are a vexing problem. Problem is, even with heavy skimming, it's more about preventing new nitrates from forming but doesn't deal with the existing nitrates very well. The live rock, sand, refugium, deal more with that, on their own rates.

Water changes are probably the best method for a rapid reduction.

People talk of dosing vodka, dosing sugar as methods for feeding bacteria which feed upon the nitrate and then are skimmed out - you can try reading up on those methods.

Supposedly Zeovit, Utralith and etc. etc. are intended to keep nitrates at bay.

Denitrators work but take time to produce a noticeable effect.

Good luck - nitrates are big pain and the enemy of SPS. :( I know it all too well. :(

Greg,

That sux! If it was my tank I would keep doing water changes until the nitrates reach zero. The corals are already shocked and stressed anyhow. I would keep a close eye on the salinity, that would be my main concern.

Is your new skimmer working well? sometimes a new skimmer takes time to really break in..I would do a 10%-20% water change 3X a week for the next few weeks until the skimmer is running at full efficiency.

BTW - lost my bubble gum due to overheating last week :( What skimmer did you end up getting?

Rather than a bunch of small changes have you considered one large one? I think small changes daily would be very stressful where a large change (30-40%...maybe even 50%) once a week would in the long run be less stressful on everything.

Just my thoughts.....

Scott

Short of doing a 100% water change you actually can't do water changes to zero - but you can make a significant reduction before you hit the point of diminishing returns.

4 - 10% water changes would leave you at 65% nitrates from before, whereas 1 - 40% water change (same water volume changed out) would leave you 60%. Not too much different.

But 10 - 10% water changes leaves you with 34% nitrates from before, whereas 1 - 100% water change (again same water volume) leaves you with zero.

Kind of hard to do a 100% water change though :( Possible (I've done it), but extremely difficult given the water volume required and if you have fish that will be affected.

Nitrates don't have to be zero. If you can get them to <10 you're pretty much set, let the tank handle the rest. Less is better but that can be handled with careful nutrient management (ie. skimming, watching how much you feed, pruning macro algae, etc.).

What are the current nitrate readings?

I vote for just doing continutal smaller water changes. Overall the system is less affected as there are no large changes happening all at once. My 230g developed a nitrate problem when we were forced to run skimmerless for 3 weeks. Just be consistant with your water changes, and it will eventually sort yourself out.

.

I would respectfully disagree.
Small water change is Less stressful then one big one even if this means cleaner water, this does not mean large change of any sort is good for you inhabitants.
JMIO.

You might want to try this. Reduces nitrates like a dream. However it doesn't cure the problem (if indeed you do have one). But better than a billion water changes (while good for the tank, not so good for the back)

http://oceanaquatics.com/store/produ...traLife-100ml/

Takes about 24 hours to reduce nitrates and phosphates. Clouds up the water for a bit (its clay-ish) but then clears. Pretty neat product :biggrin:

Try sugar dosing in SMALL quantities to reduce No3.
Please see below reference.
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...919#post261919

Remember some one mentioned that German tanks with creasy SPS colors had a haze to it? They use clay too, to increase skimming and No3 reduction.

Right, but you don't have to use it every day do you? I have used it in my tank and it clears completely after about 24 hours. Seems funny that they'd put it in their tank and then take the photo :razz:

Good point !

Deutsche Leute sind sehr verrückt!

I have done 50% water changes every 2 days for a week on my old 75g tank with no stress what so ever. In fact because i was fixing major water quality issues at the time, I only saw a huge improvement with every water change

All of this just proves my skimmer on the 175g sucks :sad: . I took it offline for 2 weeks and all it did was increase my fretfullness, no nitrates, no extra glass cleaning, nothing.

Here here!

German people are what?!?:wink:

Very crazy :mrgreen:

I can safely say that because I'm German...lol.

I used sugar, and it worked amazing for me! I recommend it over wasting money on salt, denitrators, etc.

Well it seems there are a lot of different views out there. My new skimmer is great, a Euro-Reef RC500, however the nitrate problem occurred because I was pretty much skimmerless for quite a while. I do my water changes through my refugium to minimize stress and it seems to work well. I am not sure what or how much sugar to use, obviously not refined, but I have also heard that sugar can create other problems down the road. I have continued with the Reef-resh which I think helps but my new problem is I am away next week on holidays so whatever I do I need to do now. I will look into the "clay" idea, thank you, and continue with water changes. I am not set up to be able to handle more than about 10% at a time so I think I will keep doing them at that rate this week. Darryl I am sorry to hear about the bubble gum, hopefully my insurance frag from you makes it so I can get a piece back to you. My chiller keeps the water temp great for the corals but gives off enough heat that the room is too hot for me. Man the sacrifices we make for this hobby. Thanks for the feed back everyone, I really appreciate it.

haha the google translator said that german people were very moved. I knew there had to be more to it :razz:

Here is a good article to read about water.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

"The normally encountered differences in calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, nitrate, phosphate, silica, pH, etc., are unlikely to unduly stress organisms during water changes up to 30-50% using natural seawater or aerated artificial seawater, in my opinion."

In this article it says up to 50%. You do need to be aware of water temp and a few other things, but I'm still not convinced that a fish/coral living in a toilet that needs flushing, is better than flushing.

I have read a few articles stating this or similar types of opinions and even one up to 80%.

I think alot depends on how bad the nitrates are.



Scott

When I've moved my tanks over & condensed them into the big reef, it amounted to at least 150g of new water or over 50% water change. The corals LOVED it. I've done 35-50% water changes in the past with no problems, as long as the temp & salinity was the same.

....and now the post shows up....

The board ate my post....

For those of you who do larger water changes, how do you do so without exposing any corals placed high in the tank? Or do you just do as big of water change as your system can handle without exposing any corals, clams, etc.?

I do the water changes through my refugium and shut it off with valves from my main tank while I do the water change but I am not set up for any more water than I already do at one time.

Hopefully your skimmer will take care of your nitrates, along with water changes I'm sure your tank will be back looking beautiful in now time.

I also just noticed that you said you were using Reefresh on your system. How did or didn't the product impact your system while you were skimmerless?

I have drained all the water out of my 175g tank (right down to the sand) to catch the fish. The corals were out of the water for approx. 3/4 hour with no ill effects.
I have also had my clam out of the water when doing a water change. Do you know they can spit water over 6 ft and very accurately got me square in the face :lol:

I also unfortunately know this first hand. :lol: Sadly mine got me while they were STILL in the water and I was draining my 230g.

The ocean never worrys about corals being out of the water during a water change :razz:
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Attachment487.aspx

Lol!

I think it helped to keep things stable for quite a while. The more I think about it, my old aquamedic skimmer was not working well for months. Half an inch of skim mate in a week with my bioload isn't much. I know better and should have reacted much sooner but I guess I was in denial.:redface: Man, that's two summers in a row. Darn! I definately know better. If I ever buy another aqua medic product I want someone to just shoot me.:wink: And if I have the same problem again next summer, I think I'll just have to shoot myself.:lol:

I've done 100% water changes in the past on smaller tanks. Well, down to about 1" of water anyhow. Didn't have fish though to worry about in that particular tank. But, it sure cleared up a high nitrate buildup lickedy-split! Corals were fine through the ordeal. They slime up a bit, but, the slime sluffs off eventually.

In my experience, in general, larger (eg. 40-60%) water change volumes are not that bad as all that. Yeah, water is cloudy initially, but after a day and it's cleared up, everything just tends to look awesome for it. New water I guess just tastes better for everyone who has to live in it. :)