Very High Nitrates During Cycling

S

sharko88

Well this is the second tank I have setup and the first one didn't go like this one.

So a couple of the variables for this tank setup:

1. 110 gallon tank with brand new sand. 90 lbs of dry sand and 20lbs of live sand (live from bag NOT someone's tank)

2. 57 lbs of dead rock used that I can tell was soaked in bleach, rinsed, and sun dried. Was not a lot of bleached organic material on rock (at least very minimal fuzz swaying in current from powerhead)

3. Running sump (23.4 gallons operating volume), no protein skimmer running yet (have one but Turbo Start directions said not to run one)

4. Put water in tank up to overflow line on Sunday night. All water was mixed by me from RO/DI water. Salt mix is Reef Crystals.

5. Monday night I filled up rest of water and turned on pump to start running sump.

6. Monday night after turning on return pump I added 4 oz of Turbo Start 900 (says treats up to 80 gallons, DNA said 160 gallons but put whole 4 oz in)

6. Sump has two filter socks which I replace every morning

On Tuesday night I did some water parameter tests to see if I could add a couple green chromis since I used Turbo Start. My nitrates were 80. I knew right there fish were not possible for a while. So I did a 15 gallon water change (just over 10%).

Wednesday night (tonight) I decided to go to LFS to get ammonia and nitrite tested since I did not have a test kit for those. They seemed quite shocked at the numbers. Here were the parameters concerning nitrogen cycle:

Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 80 ppm

I purchased 4.5 pounds of live rock from LFS as well (owner said he felt comfortable selling it to me) to help seed the dead rock.

I am guessing the dead rock is leaching nitrates but wanted to check on here what people in the know thought. The LFS (this one didn't carry Turbo Start) thinks the Turbo Start caused the issue. I am doubting that but it is possible. Would need a lot of people on here to verify that. Owner of LFS said to just wait it out and bring water sample in in a week. I am almost certain that is the correct call but wanted to see what others thought. I was running carbon (to help clear up the water that was cloudy thanks to new sand) and Phosban but removed that tonight from sump as to let cycle runs its course naturally (also recommended by LFS owner).

So again the questions are:

What is causing such a crazy high spike of nitrates in 2 days?

What should be my course of action since tank has only been running since Monday (that is when return pump was turned on)?
 
Sounds to me like you turned your whole tank into a curing station. My guess is the nitrates leached directly from old rock; since there are no nitrites yet another guess is none of the nitrates are from re-curing the rock yet however the rock is putting off ammonia so with the addition of turbo start the natural cycle should be starting. (unless you can measure chlorine in the tank left over from the bleaching of old liverock in which case you just nuked all of the turbo start and that's where the ammonia came from) I would personally turn the skimmer back on, remove filter socks, test tank for chlorine just to rule it out, then let it cure the rock. When all ammonia and nitrites have gone to zero then assess the nitrate level and plan your next step. Hopefully they don't end up much higher than 80 ppm as 110 gallons of water is hard to throw away. Sorry if this post is hard to read, I am super tired right now.

-Alex
 
Well I have a chlorine test kit for my pool. Wonder if that will work with salt water? Guessing so because of salt water pools. Gonna try that now.
 
That's good, honestly unless you are under a time crunch, I would just run the coarse. As a side note, do you have chlorimines in your source water and if so do you have a catalytic carbon add-on to your RO/DI?
 
Not chlorine, chlorimines. It is a bond between chlorine and ammonia that some municipal water suppliers prefer to use instead of just chlorine as it keeps the molecule in the water longer. In an RO filter with regular carbon that bond is broken and the carbon removes the chlorine but the leftover ammonia passes through the machine reeking havoc on your membrane. Call your city and ask them. If yes then do an ammonia test on the water right out of the filter. Might explain why the TDS isn't 0 ppm.
 
It has been a week and absolutely no change is water test readouts. I have not done anything since initial post except add those pieces of live rock (that was mentioned in original post). Only piece of info I have to add is that I do have a protein skimmer which I have not hooked up yet and still figure I don't need running yet, but I may be wrong.

So parameters are still:

Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 80 ppm

Any suggestions?
 
I recommended turning your skimmer on a week ago. Try it and see what happens, also, have your water tested by someone else just to double check your results.
 
Gonna install the skimmer tonight. I didn't do it last week right away because the directions of the turbo start said not to run a skimmer for at least 4 days. Then I forgot about it.
 
I did this with my second tank two months later still hasn't stopped except it did have 5 fish they were gifts hence the quick and hasty setup. The fish have all lived but one and I have to change that water every other day to keep it that way. Patience is a virtue on this one I have tried everything. The only thing that seemed to help some was purigen but I would not chance to regenerate it as I keep hearing horror stories
 
After about a 4-5 weeks my nitrates went to zero.

I am currently curing some more of that same dead rock in a tub in the garage to add to the tank. After 2 weeks the water in that tub was still over 120ppm so each week I do a 100% water change. Will be testing the water for week 3 tonight so will be interested to see if it gets down to 80. Since I don't have a skimmer running on the tub like I did the tank, I am expecting it to take a bit longer. Guess we will see.
 
I bought the octopus1000 and installed it to replace my bakpak and within the week my nitrates went to 10 that thing is awesome. I am going to do a final scrub out of the rock and move to once a week then every two week changes. I wish I had done this sooner. I still see a lot of dead on the rock so I know it's not all done that skimmer is just keeping it under control for me.
 
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