So my cycle seems to have stalled at high nitrates. Help please? :D

[Xyres]

It has been about 3-4 months since I have started my tank. It is a 55g with canister filter which I will be upgrading within a year. I have two cleaner shrimp, two clownfish, and emerald crab and some hermit crabs as well as 50-60 pounds of live rock in my tank at the moment.

Now that we have some background on my tank here is my issue. My Nitrates will NOT go down no matter what I do. I clean my filter, run a protien skimmer, do water changes and monitor food intake, have excellent water flow as well as use RO/DI water. What would be the reason for my nitrates still being around 25-40? It is really annoying as I have been doing everything I can to keep it down.

Here is what my water was at today:
Nitrates: 30
Ammonia: 0.1
Nitrite: 0.1
PH: 8.2

Any help would be great and I will answer as many questions as I can to help figure this out.

[mseepman]

Not totally sure why your nitrates stay high, but I would start by verifying that your test kit is giving you good readings. Could you verify what you run inside the canister?

From there, you could look at chemical/filter based methods of reducing them. Several companies offer liquid nitrate reducing products. Biopellets are also very popular and can run from an external fluidized reactor for a pretty reasonable price.

[Aquattro]

Sell the canister filter and use it for corals or something. There's no good reason to run a canister, and it can and usually will lead to higher nitrates.
50 pounds of rock and a good skimmer are more than enough for your bioload.

[FragIt Dan]

The fact that you have any ammonia and nitrite is a bit of a concern. Essentially, your nitrates are the last stage in your nutrient cycle (not to be confused with your tank cycling). You need to look at what nutrients are going into, or are already in your tank. Perhaps over feeding? Perhaps insufficient water changes? How big and how often are you doing water changes into what size of a tank?
Dan

[Enigma]

How does your salt water test after mixing? What ppm disloved solids is in your ro/di water?

[gregzz4]

What brand of test kits are you using ?
What is inside your canister filter ?
How do you clean your canister ?
How often and how much water do you change ?
Did you cure your LR ? Where did it come from - a running system could give you lots PO4 and NO3 leaching that will take time to dissipate ....

[Xyres]

Alright I will try to answer all these questions.

-I don't think overfeeding is an issue as I only give them what they eat a couple times a day.
-I am doing water changes everywhere from 1 week to 2 weeks and sometimes more often as I am trying to get the nitrates down.
-My salt tests at 1.024 using a refractometer.
-Not sure about dissolved solids in my water as I get it from a business who's line of work is purified water who's rep is well maintained with fish keepers.
-Inside my filter is bio foam, foam, biomax and carbon.
-For water changes I do between 20-40%. I have increased recently as I am trying to force water levels to go down.
-My live rock came from a supplier that my work deals with based in Vancouver. It was per-cultured.
-I use nutrafin for my test kits.

Any help and criticism are appreciated as I need all the help I can get.

[Enigma]

You need to test your new saltwater for everything before doing a waterchange: but especially ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. You need to be sure that you've got zeros for all three in your mixed water.

If all three are zero, that eliminates one possible source.

If all three are zero . . . Something is decaying in your system: beyond what your bio filter can handle. It could be gunk in your filter, over feeding, dying critters . . . ?

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Xyres

-Inside my filter is bio foam, foam, biomax and carbon.
-I use nutrafin for my test kits.

These are your two problems right here.

I agree with Brad (Aquattro) that there is no good reason for the canister filter. If you insist on using the canister filter use it only for carbon and/or phosphate reducing media. IF you must use some sort of "foam" to reduce particulate matter in the water column use polyester filter media that is made for quilt making (J&L sells it called Aquarium Filter Media (1-5 units) - 36" x 18" for $4 a roll) and very importantly, throw it out weekly. Do not rinse it, do not reuse it. Another option is to buy machine-washable filter media like Pure Flo 100 Micron Filter Pad or buy filter socks and cut them up. Wash them in HOT water in the washing machine with just bleach and/or baking soda. No soap. This will remove all the detritus so that it can't be converted to nitrate. The biofoam, foam, and biomax are all freshwater items and are biological filters designed to populate nitrifying bacteria that will convert organic waste (ammonia) to nitrate as quickly as possible. In a saltwater aquariums you want to remove organic waste before it can be converted to nitrate. This is the main purpose of a protein skimmer.

As far as test kits go, if you're looking for something affordable go for the API test kits. I find them to be much more accurate than Nutrafin/Hagen. I don't trust your Nutrafin kits if they are both saying 0.1 for ammonia and nitrite. Also, fwiw nitrite is not toxic in saltwater like it is in freshwater so you can save yourself a few bucks by not buying a nitrite kit. You can save yourself money on a pH test kit too because they are not very accurate in general, digital pH meters are the only readings I would trust. Essentially, if you're covering all your basic bases (waterchanges, using a skimmer, open your windows occasionally, etc) there is no reason for your pH to be out of whack anyway, so don't bother testing it. So for fish only tanks just buy ammonia and nitrate kits, and for reef tanks buy ammonia, nitrate, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium (use Salifert or Elos for this one), and phosphate (use Hanna or Elos for this one).

As far as anaerobic bacteria processing nitrate, that is true and most is found in the live rock. Some can be found in some sandbeds (although that often causes more trouble than good). Between a good skimmer, good maintenance, reasonable level of livestock, and good quality and quantity of live rock you should be able to keep nitrate near "0".

[FragIt Dan]

Originally Posted by Xyres

Thanks for the continued support everyone! I have a few things to say as well as ask a few questions. Today I removed my foam in my 305 and added more carbon as unfortunately a sump is not an option with this tank. I also started vodka dosing today so i hope this helps as well.

Now my question is about a GFO/carbon reactor. Is there one that will work without a sump? In the past I looked at the BRS GFO/carbon reactors but they seem to be for sumps only. Any ideas?

The TLF ones hang on the glass, they should work without a sump, bug if I recall the BRS ones are much the same. As for the vodka dosing, look into Vinegar instead and save yourself some headache down the road with cyano blooms.
Dan