SALTWATER fishtank help!

[Kkrista123]

Is anyone familiar with fish? I keep a lot of freshwater fish and breed peacock cichlids. I gave less knowledge with saltwater as I only am on my second tank. I was having crazy ridiculous Nitrate problems with my water and I'm slowly fixing that. I'm currently using many different natural processes as I have found those work better than dumping a lot of chemicals into the water that causes chain reactions. Pretty much all my invertebrates died instantly because we hit about 160 ppm when it's only ever supposed to hit a high of 40. My fish all survived it fine though since fish have thick skin for nitrate. My biggest issue is my urchin. My Rose Pink Urchin lost a lot of it's spines but I wanted to keep giving it a chance as the water was only getting better. I think it's alright because today was the first day in a couple of weeks that it was able to get back up to the wall. It use to be highly active moving around the walls. It's not moving around the walls, but it got up onto the bottom of one as of today. Keep pushing with it alive for the ppm of nitrate? Thanks for any advice!

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

@CarpCharacin should be able to help you

 

[007Sean]

@Kkrista123, are you doing water changes? How old is your setup? How many gallons is the tank? Did you circle your tank before adding livestock. And lastly, how many animals do you have in your tank?

 

[CarpCharacin]

Just a disclaimer, I don't keep saltwater fish, just freshwater, but you need to be doing large, frequent water changes to remove all of those nitrates. It sounds like the tank is cycled, since the ammonia is getting processed into nitrite, and then nitrate, but to remove the nitrate, you need to be doing water changes.

 

[Kkrista123]

@Kkrista123, are you doing water changes? How old is your setup? How many gallons is the tank? Did you circle your tank before adding livestock. And lastly, how many animals do you have in your tank?

I am doing about a 35% water change weekly along with topping off the tank with fresh treated water every 3 days or so. The setup is now 3 months old although all the live rock was already cycled from my previous setup that had perfect water quality. The tank is 60 gallons plus the sump box is another 20. I have been doing extra water changes to help the nitrates along with adding nitrate reducing media of all different types to the sump. I've been reducing feeding to accommodate levels. The tank was pretty well cycled before livestock was added however we still had owned a melanurus wrasse wrasse so he has been in there and doing fine since day 1. I had a small cleanup crew and have maybe 1 nassarius snail alive and 2 blue/red legged crabs. Current livestock is wrasse, snail, crabs, urchin, purple tang, a pair of ocellaris clownfish and a scooter blenny. Watchman goby and royal gramma have passed away. All of the fish are alright now that the nitrate is a lot lower but I still can't seem to get rid of it all together. Also my rose pink urchin lost most of it's spines and I'm not sure if it's alright to keep pushing. Today was the first though that it was able to move around again and it got up on the wall twice. I am feeding marine pellets, a tiny pinch of flakes for my clowns (they love it for some reason) and seaweed. I only put a tiny amount of seaweed in now so there isn't any wasted left in the tank. Thanks for any help!

 

[007Sean]

What are your ammonia/nitrate/nitrite readings/measurements?
Depending on those readings which I suspect are high, the tank hasn't finished cycling. 3 months is a very short time for a tank to cycle fully. Most take 4 to 6 months to cycle fully.
Also, depending on your schedule of changing the reducing media out, and the amount being used, it could be creating a nitrate sink, and leaching back into the system.
Your weekly water changes should be lowering the levels of nitrates/nitrites.
You might check and be sure nothing has died and you can't see it or find it, plus if any uneaten food is getting trapped in crevasses or behind the rock, could be causing the high readings.

What is the lighthing schedule and what type of lighting (CPF's, LED , Metal Halide, VHO flouresences).

 

[CarpCharacin]

The fact that it is the nitrate that is high and not ammonia or nitrite makes me think the tank is cycled, I just think that there is probably too much bio-load for the filter to handle. Here is an article on the nitrogen cycle: https://www.utahfishkeepers.us/articles/nitrogen-cycle.237/

Most take 4 to 6 months to cycle fully.

An aquarium should never take that long to cycle, unless you are doing something wrong, like rinsing the filter media with tap water.

 

[007Sean]

The fact that the nitrate readings are 160ppm tells me the system hasn't cycled. If it had cycled, it should be less than 20 ppm, and generally, most tanks that have cycled are in the range of .05ppm, which would read undetectable on most test kits.

From what has been listed on livestock and what's being fed, the bio load and amount of food isn't causing the problem, unless it's being fed more than once a day.
If it's being operated as a FOWLR without a sand bed or a refugium, then the bio load could cause a problem.
@Kkrista123 are you running a skimmer? If not I would look into getting one, or using an algae turf scrubber to help transport the nitrogen compounds out of the system. The only other way is to do frequent water changes and limit the amount of food being fed.
With nitrates that high the next fight will be diatom blooms and hair algae.

 

[CarpCharacin]

The fact that the nitrate readings are 160ppm tells me the system hasn't cycled. If it had cycled, it should be less than 20 ppm, and generally, most tanks that have cycled are in the range of .05ppm, which would read undetectable on most test kits.

The nitrifying bacteria doesn't get rid of nitrate (NO3-). The first step of the cycle is when ammonia (NH3) is introduced into the tank, then it is converted by Nitrosomonas bacteria into nitrite (NO2−), and then there is the final step of the cycle which is where Nitrobacter and Nitrospira convert the nitrite (NO2−) into nitrate (NO3-). The nitrate then needs to be removed by water changes. If the tank weren't fully cycled, it would be the ammonia and/or nitrite readings that would be high, not the nitrate readings.

 

[Kkrista123]

What are your ammonia/nitrate/nitrite readings/measurements?
Depending on those readings which I suspect are high, the tank hasn't finished cycling. 3 months is a very short time for a tank to cycle fully. Most take 4 to 6 months to cycle fully.
Also, depending on your schedule of changing the reducing media out, and the amount being used, it could be creating a nitrate sink, and leaching back into the system.
Your weekly water changes should be lowering the levels of nitrates/nitrites.
You might check and be sure nothing has died and you can't see it or find it, plus if any uneaten food is getting trapped in crevasses or behind the rock, could be causing the high readings.

What is the lighthing schedule and what type of lighting (CPF's, LED , Metal Halide, VHO flouresences).

The tank is actually completely cycled it just won't get over the nitrate. Everything else is fine (aside from ammonia being a .25). Just fish right now but I saw aiptasia anemone growing in the tank today. I plan to remove the live rock and treat all the rock making sure I get it all tomorrow. (Too many small cracks in tank to treat without pullling the live rock.) Culd this be affecting the nitrate? My nitrate has lowered from a high of 160 to about 80 ppm now. Still way too high. I've tried everything. Last suggestion someone gave me was to switch to RO water instead of treated saltwater. I assume maybe my local water has high nitrate to begin with and this might be causing it? Simple test on my water at home to figure that one out. Thanks for help!! (My urchin has been feeling better and re-growing all quils.)

The fact that the nitrate readings are 160ppm tells me the system hasn't cycled. If it had cycled, it should be less than 20 ppm, and generally, most tanks that have cycled are in the range of .05ppm, which would read undetectable on most test kits.

From what has been listed on livestock and what's being fed, the bio load and amount of food isn't causing the problem, unless it's being fed more than once a day.
If it's being operated as a FOWLR without a sand bed or a refugium, then the bio load could cause a problem.
@Kkrista123 are you running a skimmer? If not I would look into getting one, or using an algae turf scrubber to help transport the nitrogen compounds out of the system. The only other way is to do frequent water changes and limit the amount of food being fed.
With nitrates that high the next fight will be diatom blooms and hair algae.

I am running a skimmer, I had a crappy one so I put a nice one on. I run the skimmer in the sump box. Only feeding once a day, I just wait for wrasse to be out from underneath the sand bed to make sure they all eat and I only need to feed once. I have live sand bedding which was about an inch thick across the bottom but the jet just pushed it all towards the back so I'll need to make the sand bed thicker in the front of the tank.

Wrong. The nitrifying bacteria doesn't get rid of nitrate (NO3-). The first step of the cycle is when ammonia (NH3) is introduced into the tank, then it is converted by Nitrosomonas bacteria into nitrite (NO2−), and then there is the final step of the cycle which is where Nitrobacter and Nitrospira convert the nitrite (NO2−) into nitrate (NO3-). The nitrate then needs to be removed by water changes. If the tank weren't fully cycled, it would be the ammonia and/or nitrite readings that would be high, not the nitrate readings.

Now if you still believe the system isn't cycled, I suggest you back up your conclusion with evidence instead of making baseless, unscientific claims.

Everything's reading perfect ( aside from .25 of ammonia) the tank cycled well... until the nitrate. The nitrates are the only part that never cycled. I use a reef rectometer and api saltwater tank test. I don't have reef but i recently switched from fish only setup salt to reef and fish system salt. I am using good quality salt and introducing the new kind in small amounts and monitoring the salt levels. I just have no clue why I can't get a handle on this darn nitrate. Lie i stated in the post above, I'm doing water changes with treated saltwater. I am going to switch over to RO in hopes my local water was the cause of high nitrates in the first place. Although it was never an issue with my freshwater tanks so I'm not sure why it would be a problem with the salt.

I know a hell of a lot about tanks and fish but I just don't know about common saltwater tank trouble shooting yet as I learned about tank troubleshooting through my many of freshwater tanks! Thanks for the troubleshooting help everyone. Is RO water most likely the solution to my problem even though that wasn't an issue ever for my freshwaters?