Tank levels went crazy (1 Viewer)

[wendy32693]

Last weekend I switched my tank from a 120g short tank to a 6ft 125g tank,.tested levels in tank before I put corals in everything was fine. Corals and fish are all doing fine, not having any problems but tonight when I tested the levels everything is showing up a lot different then last week. Levels are

Ph-7.7
Nitrate is showing either at 50 or 100. Hard to tell colors apart. Last week nitrates were 12.5
Calcium is 520
Salt level is 1.020
Alk- 12dkh
Phosphate -0.25

Everything was normal last week, will a large water change fix this? Ive been considering a gfo reactor would this help me with my problem? all corals (lps and softies) and fish seems to be fine.

 

[tektite]

I'd get your salinity back up, that's really low for corals/inverts. The nitrates are probably from die-off from the move, at least your nitrifying bacteria are working well

 

[wendy32693]

Ok, should I consider any reactors that would help my tank be more stable in the long run, ive seem to always have a problem keeping nitrates and phos down. Will water changes help the levels go back to normal including salt level?

 

[tektite]

Water changes will help even everything back out. For nutrients GFO or biopellets should help.

 

[wendy32693]

I've read online about bio pellets and I've seen people say using bio pellets in their tank was causing algea outbreaks, is this true? Also the media reactor you have for sale can you run gfo in that or would I need a reactor specifically for gfo

 

[tektite]

I don't have any personal experience with biopellets, so I can't say. You could run GFO in my reactor, but for a tank your size its a bit on the big side, lol. You'll probably only need around 2 cups of GFO, though that'll change a bit with brand.

 

[Jasonc]

Like Tektite said; It sounds like you've got a mini cycle going from the switch. Do you have any nitrites? A water change will help get rid of some of the nitrates.

I'd run GFO in a reactor (I like BRS) to get your phosphate levels down. A 125 will require roughly 1 cup of high capacity GFO (BRS product) without taking into consideration your sump water volume which will make it a tad more - maybe 1.25 cups total. The standard BRS reactor hold 2 cups of GFO so their standard reactor will work great.

I'm also not using biopellets. I've read to many reports of cyano problems when using them so I opted not to use one.

 

[inigomontoya]

After the water change get the salinity to 1.026- they mentioned getting it back up, just want to make sure you know where to. 1.021 is typical for fish only and 1.026 is what natural salt water is and used for reef tanks. When first in the hobby I got water from Aquarium World not knowing they did it to 1.021 so inappropriate for the corals.
For nitrates, water change of course for the immediate, but chaeto or another macro will work or you can do bio pellets.
I do and have run bio pellets and am a fan. On my new tank I am running a small amount at first (for my water volume) to try and keep sps happy, but still not go to an ultra low nutrient system (ULNS) which is best for sps. No cyano problems yet.

 

[wendy32693]

Ok, I will buy a large container so I can mix a big amount of saltwater to do a water change and will try to get salt level back up. I have always had cheato in the sump, right now I have cheato, mangroves, calpura and grape algea and a deep sand bed in sump tank. and even before I switched tanks ive had a problem trying to keep nitrates down so I definatly need to do something extra to help keep it down.

 

[BigRick]

Do you have a good protien skimmer? If not the get used to 25% weekly water changes.

 

[wendy32693]

Yes I bought it from mike, the reef octupus skimmer for 150g, I have another skimmer ive been considering setting up on the tank also rated for 150g would it help the tank with 2 skimmers running?

 

[emixa]

the 150 skimmer should do fine, but for in the future, i would look for one that has a capacity of 200 or more as a bigger skimmer is ALOT better if you sometimes over feed. what kind of light are you running in your sump. i have heard that if you have too much macro in there, it might not be doing the job as just the right amount. but thats what i have read. Cat (the queen of macro) can shoot me down anytime and tell you the truth. make sure that if you are running reactors that it targets what you want to drop as bio-pellets are more for nitrate issues and GFO is for phosphate. if you put too much, you WILL run a large change of taking out too much nutrients and cause your corals to stress and then RTN/STN.

 

[wendy32693]

I just added the other macros, before I switched the tank last weekened all I had was cheato and it didnt seem to help any

 

[tektite]

Its hard to have enough macroalgae to keep nutrients very low if you feed a lot, especially with how small the refugium sections of the typical sump are. You either have to have a lot of macroalgae, or an algae turf scrubber for macroalgae alone to keep nutrients down.

 

[wendy32693]

I was reading about building an ats last night but I saw a lot of negatives to having one, some people said that they had problems with it turning their tank water yellow, and that a skimmer was better to have, can you run a skimmer and a ats ?

 

[BigRick]

ATS 's are awesome when setup properly. The majority of the people having problems aren't following correct protocall. ATS use GHA

 

[wendy32693]

Can I have a ats and a skimmer both running or is it just one or the other?

 

[steveb]

yes you can have both

 

[wendy32693]

I am going to build a ats I will get some pipes and the mesh stuff, I already found a build thread for one so hopefully I can build it myself without messing anything up!

 

[wendy32693]

Finally got it made and rubbed on some hair algea to help get it started. Not the best pictures, set up a separate tank for the turf scrubber and have a hang on over flow for it.