How to lower Nitrates?
 

Hi there,

Both of my tanks have high nitrates right now. what are some of the ways you guys keep your nitrates low? or no nitrates at all?

Manny

Feed less, change water more often.
Get some kind of nutrient export, for instance: grow cheato in sump and then throw it out or give it away

What do you call high?

cut down feeding, grow some chaeto, run bio pellets. Stay away the bottle that claims to reduce nitrate because I found it is a waste of money.

How long have you had your tank?

Google ULN +reef

what happens if you don't trim the chaeto and just let it grow and get bigger and bigger? is that a bad thing? isn't it the more you have the more nutrients it will absorb?

Mh first tank has almost a year i set that up, the second one was setup back in december last year. My nitrates are reading about 40ppm in one and higher in the other one about 80ppm, i think that's quite high. So some of you recomended cheato. Plus more often water changes. I do my water changes every other week to both tanks. All my other parameter are within good range, its just the nitrates are reading high right now.

Manny

that seems really high to me... and your doing water changes... could it possibly be an old test kit?

i found this online im not sure how accurate it is

What Is an Acceptable Level?

The optimal amount of nitrate in any type of saltwater system is an immeasurable one, but an acceptable range for fish-only tanks is from 10 to 40 ppm. Although fish-only tanks may run at much higher levels, sometimes with no ill effects, this is not recommended. In reef systems even a minor level of nitrate can cause damage as well as death to delicate corals, anemones and other invertebrates, as well as some crustaceans. The acceptable range of nitrate for reef tanks is 0.25 ppm, but not more than 5 ppm.

they also suggest that you do a 20% water change then another 20% change a day or two later

The easiest way in my opinion is to just buy a larger protien skimmer. Thats all I had to do.

Deep sandbeds are another idea... but take longer to implement and can be problematic.

larger skimmer, more water changes, carbon dosing (I recommend biopellets).

larger and/or better quality skimmer, weekly instead of bi-weekly water changes, feeding less and only every second day and if you can live with the "bare-bottom" look remove the substrate

+1 for better/bigger skimmer and bio pellets. I was having the same problem, so I increased water changes and reduced feeding, after a month no real change. So I tried Nitrate destroyer from tailored aquatics. It helped, but after a month of this my levels went from 40 to 30. I have a 90 w/40gal sump. Running a vertex in-180. So I tried biopellets (vertex) I put in the minimum suggested. After 3days I had a bacteria bloom that lasted almost a week. Then the skimmer started to really pull out some nasty stuff. When the tank cleared my levels had dropped to 0.25 and as been there consistently for the over a month... I am also water changing 20% every 2 weeks

Bio-pellets for sure. A good way to go ULNS. Just be careful as running a lean system like this, things can go wrong quicker (from what I've heard). So just keep on top of your params.

How big are the tanks?..... how many and what kind of fish are in the tanks?

+1 on pellets, but before you start adding anything take a sample of your water and get your lfs to test it for you. I would definitely make sure your test kits aren't expired. Also one thing I noticed, quality test kits are key to success. If the results are the same then let us know how your tank is stocked and your feeding regime in details so we can try to figure out what the problem lies.

When I had a 30g skimmer less lps/softy tank, I used to do 50% water changes a week. There was always some NO3 from feeding the lps, but usually only around 5ppm at water change time. It was vital to match temp and ph, if this was done there wasn't any problem caused by the large water change. May not be a long term solution, but it will cut down the NO3 fast, while you look for the cause.

So more skimming the better to get nitrates down? What about two skimmers?

Test kita are fine i think, i just bought them like a month ago.

What brand of test kits do you use? Honestly take a sample and give it to your local fish store, they will be more than happy to help you and test it for you. I used to run 2 skimmers on my 72 gallon, it worked just fine. It seems when it comes to skimmers more is always better.

Wow everything mentioned is great advice :lol:

For starts as mentioned increase your water changes to weekly till the levels come down and reduce feeding. Then certainly look at bigger skimmers, N/P pellets and cheato to keep the levels down.

How many fish?

Bump for this question...

I like vodka,but the last time I mentioned that... it got kinda weird :mrgreen:

By not downsizing the chaeto ball you will have missed the whole point of growing it. The idea is to use macro algae as a nutrient export mechanism. By not removing any part of the ball you will not be exporting anything.

Thanks! Is there a certain color or part of the ball that I should dispose of? Ie, remove the top half?

Just pull part of it off every once and a while and toss it, trade it, sell it, eat it... whatever. Unless part of it looks poor or is dying the mass should look pretty uniform. I sometimes find that I get other types of algae growing on my chaeto mass. So I'll pick that section to throw out.

This will lower Nitrates for you
 

These works very well i have one and it works wonders very good product. !!GET ONE!! :mrgreen:

I battled with nitrates forever, fed less, changed lights, food, water changes every day etc etc etc.

Vertex Bio Pellets was the answer for me. I tried another brand before that with little success. It took a good 3-4 months but now nitrates are undetectable.