Nitrates through the roof.. water change frequency

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Freddybnj_2004

Newbie
Jan 9, 2007
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57
Millstone Township, NJ
Hi, I had a LFS doing my maintenance and obviously they weren't doing a good job so I stopped using them. I found out they hadn't done any water changes in over a month... I tested the water and my Nitrates are off the chart... I lost a couple of fish in the last week or so... I ordered the equipment and material on line and did my own water change this Saturday! I did only about 10% because that is the size vat I have. (100 gallons)
I retested a day later and it's still high.... I just need to know how often I can do a water change. I can only perform one a day because of time constraints with filling 100 gallons of ro water...
Can I do one everyday for the rest of the week? Every other day????
 
you can do a water change every day until you bring your nitrates down. Do you have a sump and refugium with a tank that size? If you have a refugium you can have some seaweed growing in there that eats nitrates so helps to control them for you. Just a thought for you...
 
mikelush78 said:
you can do a water change every day until you bring your nitrates down. Do you have a sump and refugium with a tank that size? If you have a refugium you can have some seaweed growing in there that eats nitrates so helps to control them for you. Just a thought for you...
Click to expand...

I am just learning the ins and outs of my system.. what is a refugium and what kind of seaweed, like from my LFS?

Thanks...
 
first of all, the fish did not die due to nitrates problem, but from something else. what kinds of fish do you have and what else is in the tank? do you run a protein skimmer? also, water changes every day or every other day for nitrates issue is a waste of time. refugium is good to have, but expect that it will take time to bring nitrates down. good luck
 
BadRoma1 said:
first of all, the fish did not die due to nitrates problem, but from something else. what kinds of fish do you have and what else is in the tank? do you run a protein skimmer? also, water changes every day or every other day for nitrates issue is a waste of time. refugium is good to have, but expect that it will take time to bring nitrates down. good luck
Click to expand...

Well... all my other tests are coming back in the ideal range.
I am attaching pics of my equipment... don't mind the sides of the tank... I am still in the process of having the cabinet sides built...

My fish/coral/Invert list is pretty long... I have pics of mostly everything on my post in the "Members tanks and fish pics" thread. Titled "Hello" ...
Ignore the first set of pics they were in my tank...

Here are the pics of my equipment.
 
Freddybnj_2004 said:
Well... all my other tests are coming back in the ideal range.
I am attaching pics of my equipment... don't mind the sides of the tank... I am still in the process of having the cabinet sides built...

My fish/coral/Invert list is pretty long... I have pics of mostly everything on my post in the "Members tanks and fish pics" thread. Titled "Hello" ...
Ignore the first set of pics they were in my tank...

Here are the pics of my equipment.
Click to expand...

Sorry... didn't take uploads... I'll try that again!!! LOL!

100_0101.jpg 100_0102.jpg 100_0103.jpg 100_0104.jpg 100_0105.jpg 100_0106.jpg 100_0107.jpg 100_0108.jpg 100_0109.jpg 100_0111.jpg 100_0112.jpg 100_0113.jpg 100_0115.jpg 100_0116.jpg
 
That's quite large! I can only imagine what I'd do with a tank that size!

Unfortunately, a 10% water change doesn't do much for reducing nutrient concentrations. For example, if your nitrates are 50 ppm, a 10% water change would only lower the concentration to 45 ppm. The next one would take it down to 40 - 41 ppm, the one after that down to roughly 37 ppm, and the next one down to roughly 33 ppm -- and that's only if no source of NO3 is added to the tank in between the water changes. Nonetheless, unless your NO3 is much higher than most of us could imagine, the majority of fish can tolerate it. You'd actually see problems with your invertebrates before your fish if NO3 was high enough to be deadly.

When did you first notice the NO3 reading to be that high -- before the fish died, or after? If it was after, it would be a bit more understandable, as the recently departed were probably sizeable and starting to decay a little before being removed (adding NH3 which was broken down to NO3).

I'd seriously consider adding a refugium to your system with some macro algae. With all that space under the tank, I'd hope you still have a little room leftover to install one without much trouble. :)
 
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mikelush78 said:
you can do a water change every day until you bring your nitrates down. Do you have a sump and refugium with a tank that size? If you have a refugium you can have some seaweed growing in there that eats nitrates so helps to control them for you. Just a thought for you...
Click to expand...

Do not do that.

Doing that may kill your fish and cause them shock.
 
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