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#1
10-17-2011, 03:32 PM
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Reef Pilot, thank you for sharing your experience. That is exactly what I was hoping to hear from others. You have put my mind at ease (at least for the time being). I am glad to know I am not the only one who has witnessed this, and more glad to know that your animals continued to thrive during your hard times and did not give up.
I am certainly going to try to resolve, but at least I know that things can continue to live during this time while I am trying to figure out a solution. I would be very sad if one of my shrimps died. 
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#2
10-17-2011, 05:05 PM
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There are a few things I would do to reduce nitrate:
1. 30% water changes every couple of days to get nitrates below 10 ppm. Also, double check that your test kit is reading correctly. 2. Get some macroalgae to slurp up some of these nutrients. 3. If possible, throw on a HOB mechanic filter for a few days. Use a turkey baster to baste the rock and sandbed. This will stir up a lot of nitrate- and phosphate-producing crud that can be exported from your system by cleaning the filter. For best results, plan to do this over a weekend when you can baste the tank, let the crud fill up the filter, clean the filter, then do it over and over again until the tank is barely cloudy after basting. This is more work than a lot of people care to put into their tanks, but well worth the effort in the long run. 4. And do weekly water changes of at least 15% forevermore 
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#3
10-19-2011, 02:01 AM
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After 3 sessions of turkey baster and later the water change, nitrate is down to around 50 today.
I know Myka tried above (thank you Myka), but I am still not very clear as to why ammonia and nitrite are reading 0 when nitrate is high?
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#5
10-19-2011, 03:37 AM
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Ammonia is eaten up in the system by the bacteria as quickly as it is produced so there is never enough ammonia to be read on a typical hobbyists' test kit. Same with nitrite. If you used a very expensive, very accurate, very sensitive ammonia test you could get an ammonia reading in pretty much any marine body of water. This also happens with nitrate and phosphate...both can be eaten up by algae so quickly that there is not enough left in the water column for typical hobbyist test kits to detect.
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#6
10-19-2011, 03:47 AM
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Anyhow, with a couple more water changes, I hope the nitrates are gone.
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#7
10-19-2011, 04:06 AM
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It all depends on the type of liverock. If it is dense non porous liverock, it will never do the job right. I only have about 45 lbs of Totoka liverock in my 75 gallons but since it is so porous, that's all it takes.
YOur liverock must be very porous for it to be efficient as denitrification. Quote:
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#9
10-19-2011, 04:30 AM
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Hybrid Mode
