50% water change and still 20ppm nitrates

[Milad]

about 20 total fish, bunch of them are small with only 4-5 fish i would consider large (3"+)

I do 10% water changes weekly on the money

Salt is stirred for 1 week

Skimmer runs 24/7

Lights are on a timer

Autotop off is set with RO/DI water so the level is solid

Ive reduced feeding in the last week to almost nothing, enough that someone took a huge bite out of my xenia

I felt bad for the tangs so ive feed them a small piece of nori (1x5) last couple days.

I'm fine with not doing anything but this wasn't something that has been around this whole time, thats whats bugging me. All of a sudden all these things went wacko.

ill get a phosphate kit and test it out.

[reefwars]

keep up your routine and keep everything posted im sure sooner than later somethings gonna give and youll see a reduction, during the first year of my small reef tank i had everything from cyano to 40+ nitrates heat problems and algae on the glass like crazy i kept up with the steady routine and never really got to worried about things, funny how sometimes less is more now i dont do anything lol maybe wipe the glass now and then and feed my 110 was a different story after a year i am still battling problems (was sold yesterday)im like yourself i need an answer i hate not knowing...but in truth not all the answers are known and with a little time things even out

[naesco]

Milad when the equilibrium gets out of wack by overstocking overfeeding adding unecessary additives the tank goes wacko. This is even more the case in small tanks.

It is a newbie problem that we as newbies all faced.

If your ph is too low or your phospate is too high and you reach for a magic exilar to solve it it may be solved short term but the problem remains.

Test your water and let us know and you can make slow adjustments and with water changes will get your tank perfect. You will see.

[Milad]

Originally Posted by naesco

Milad when the equilibrium gets out of wack by overstocking overfeeding adding unecessary additives the tank goes wacko. This is even more the case in small tanks.

It is a newbie problem that we as newbies all faced.

If your ph is too low or your phospate is too high and you reach for a magic exilar to solve it it may be solved short term but the problem remains.

Test your water and let us know and you can make slow adjustments and with water changes will get your tank perfect. You will see.

naesco what im saying is If ive overfed, ive overfed since day 1. If i over stocked I overstocked since the first month. I basically did nothing and it showed up like this really really fast. Its not like I just started feeding 4 times a day the week all this algea started and I havent bought a fish except a small powder brown tang in the last few months.

i just feel i didnt do anything but remove the rowphos and start dosing a few zeovit products to help kill the cayno and boom, something happened. So its definitely one of the two things I did (I would think) because nothing else has really changed for a long time.

[fishytime]

again like Wayne said....."with respect".......20 fish in a 5 month old tank is the reason you have high nitrates.....your tank simply cant keep up with the rapid increase in bio-load and thus is in a constant state of trying to catch up.....