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Nitrate Testing in High Nitrite environment (1 Viewer)

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Ulric

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Need help in locating a test kit, to test nitrates in a system with high Nitrites... as my current Nitrite levels exceed the capablity of my current 'kit'. (Red Sea Marine Lab)
 

cparka23

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If your nitrites are that high, the nitrates will be high too. They are related values in reef tanks, as is ammonia. Forget testing nitrates; you should be more concerned about ammonia and nitrites. Ammonia and nitrites are more toxic. Something in your water is not right.
 
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Ulric

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No kidding, but so far AM appears to be fine...

Nitrites are too high, from what I can tell...depending on the kit/type
High Nitrite can skew some Nitrate test kits. I want something to (good) to test Nitrates to get a better idea of what is going on in the tank.

It's possible there's some cause that is inhibiting growth of Nitritate/Nitrate bacteria, or Nitrates are producing but something is providing enough AM for AM/Nitrite conversion, helping to maintain Nitrate
but obviously, faster/more than Nitrite to Nitrate.
There's 3 stages to the 'cycle', merely looking at 1 or 2 isn't telling me what I'm looking to try to find out.

Going to buy a higher quality, complete kit here soon...and thats part of the purpose of the original post.
 
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Ulric

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It'd help to know what's causing the hi-nitrite in order to find the best manner to attempt to resolve it.

In theory, I could sit and just wait and eventually it should balance out...and indeed that may be the best thing to do.

If there seems to be something, inhibiting growth of nitriate to nitrate converting bacteria, it might be better to tear everything down, carefully examine/clean as appropiate and start over.
 

cparka23

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Ammonia appears to be fine, as in "zero?" If that's the case, you might just have a bad NO2- kit on your hands.

Bacteriology is all about dynamics. You're never going to find an answer as to what might be causing X from performing this or that part of the nitrogen cycle. IMO, you'd be better off examining the macroscopic factors - feeding, inverts, water turnover, filtration, skimming, live rock & substrate (hypoxic/anoxic environments), etc.. jmo
 
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Ulric

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Aye, and two bad kits are possible....though unlikely... and if these are anywhere remotely accurate, we're talking 4+

I'm trying to track live/loss ratio on small cleaning crew I put in to handle detrisu from live rock and diatoms... and apparently it hasn't affected (or killed rather) the gorilla crab which I saw this morning.


....something however would seem to be amiss..

It's a 'fresh' tank so nitrites can be high, and long... but we're looking at approx 4 weeks now, with no reduction in the nitrites within the abilities of the test kits to detect... and testing of distlled source and tap water get normal expected results.

System doesn't seem to be effectively skimming,
I'm not 'feeding' anything into the tank, no live stock aside from hitchhikers, macro, some corals (hitchiker) and small cleanup crew.
1 Turbo, 1 Astrea, 10 nassarius, 10 dwarf blue leg and 1, 1/4" crab (hitchhiker) ..ah add a deceased limpet and deceased red leg hermit (small).

Circulation:
Return pump is somewhere around 600-800 gph, 1 800gph power head, 1 300gph with a hydor attachment. (cant remember what it's called offhand).

50lbs TBS liverock, 4lbs live sand, 4 lbs live rubble.
2lb live sand & all rubble in the fuge section of the sump with some macro algea (approx 8gal displacement).
 
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Ulric

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Aye, and two bad kits are possible....though unlikely... and if these are anywhere remotely accurate, we're talking 4+
..and yes 0 for AM, on both kits.

I'm trying to track live/loss ratio on small cleaning crew I put in to handle detrisu from live rock and diatoms... and apparently it hasn't affected (or killed rather) the gorilla crab which I saw this morning.


....something however would seem to be amiss..

It could merely just be the cycle of a new tank, but at 4 weeks with noticable change on Nitrite I have to wonder a bit.
 
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Ulric

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...took down the skimmer, cleaned and rebuilt it.

Need to do the pumps, though Im inclined to think my pump the the skimmer is starting to show it's age. As a work-around/assist, I installed a 40" 'airstone' and line in the bottom of the skimmer... and woke up to a nice head of foam in the skimmer this morning.

I'll dis-assemble, clean and inspect the pumps between now and the weekend and see if things improve too.
 
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