need some advice! please
 

Quick question!

I know this is prob somewhere on the forum but i think my situation is a bit different. My tank has been running for three months now and is just about fully stocked with no deaths due to water parameters. (just beating each other up) Just ran a test for nitrites and nitrates, and came up with 0ppm nitrites and i think over 5 ppm nitrates?!?!? Not to sure about this one. I'm going to retest but does anyone have any thoughts? All of my corals look great and the fish seem to be doing well also.

Tank inhabitants: 2xcraxy frogspawn/ 1xhammer coral/ 5xdifferent zoos/ 1xlarge leather/ 1xpulsing zenia/ 1,000,000xstar polyps/ 1xrock of yellow polyps/ 1xelegance coral/ 1xbubble tip anenome/ 1xelephant ear rock/ 2xsps (just bought tonight , not sure of specific names/ 1xniger trigger/ 1xpicaso trigger (just bought tonight)/ 1xpep shrimp/ 1xcleaner shrimp/ 1xstarfish/

Everything seems good......am i in for a bad surprise tomorrow morn. All parameters have been A+ untill tonight so i'm hoping this is just a quick spike due to the new additions tonight and their store water

isn't 5ppm nitrates really great? It's never 0 is it?

Rates - 0 ppm nitrites 5 ppm? Did something die recently?

Also 3 months to fully stocked from a scratch tank is really soon.

If nothing is showing distress, just hope it's testing error.

Also, never add store system water to your tank. Store system water can carry many pests/pathogens. As well, when adding from a fish only system, a lot of the time they use meds/chemicals in those systems (when they operate separate of any coral systems) and the addition of those chems can be particularly deletrious in a reef system.

he said 0 nitrite.

it was nitrate that was 5 ppm.

Hey, I learned to read from a TV guide, leave me alone.

Ignore points 1 and 3 then. The rest still apply.

shrimp chips* The store i buy all of my livestock from takes care of their livestock intending it to end up (with some water) in my tank. I have found for myself by way of trial and lack of error i am safe but i can see there being potential problems like you mentioned. I had an algae bloom early on that covered now more than 1.5 square inch area i syphoned it up and have yet to see any problems unless this nitrate issue is a big one? My main concern is whether or not i need to be worried if nitrates were between 5ppm and 10ppm. I am doing a ten percent water change tomorrow hoping it will address any problems (tank+sump volume is 70gal).

Also, i had been running a skimmer on my tank all the way up until monday this week when i had a prob with it and it was down for until late yesterday. Could this be where the nitrate spike began seeing as my system (not very mature) probably was relying on the skimmer to remove a good percentage of the nitrates.

Lastly, should i run some carbon? Not sure if it would be completely irrelevant in assisting me with my problem.

haha will do.

Understand that i am aware of my lack of patience and it's only through some very good monitoring (way to many hours every week) that my little exception to the patience rule has been a success thus far.

A skimmer will remove organics that will eventually become nitrates. So yeah for sure not running your skimmer will lead to elevated nitrates.

i would run some carbon for a bit

Well, it is simply not acceptable Ryan. Your lack of patience will stress your fish with the result that the water parameters will become out of wack.
The result will stress your fish which are already stressed as you have indicated they are fighting each other even before the additions.
YOU are responsible to provide optimum conditions for the critters you choose to keep.