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.