reducing nitrates ?

[eleyan]

My 175G tank has been established for a couple f years so far. I stopped measuring water parameters a while back when it seemed like it was never changing. Anyway, a month or so ago I noticed that some of the montipora started dying off. Also some of the zoos are closing up. Most other corals, including the acro were still doing fine. Another thing that started happening around the same time is that my large colt coral was closing up too. I noticed that my tangs were nipping at it, so I thought that its because of that.
I measured my nitrates today and its at 20. It was always at zero before. I'm not sure what was the cause and what was the effect: the corals dying rasing the nitrates, or the high nitrate killing the coral. My theory is that the colt was releasing some toxin as a defense for the fish nipping at it and that killed the corals which raised the nitrates.
My question is this: is there a good nitrate absorbent that I can use to reduce the nitrates quickly. I normally do a 25% water change once a month. I'm going to start doing it once every 2 weeks until the nitrates stabilize, but meanwhile, I wanted to kick start it with something to absorb the nitrates. I have a skimmer and a fuge already by the way.

[erikharrison]

20% water change and 10% daily will get them down REALLY fast.

[DaBird47]

20% water change and 10% daily will get them down REALLY fast.

What Erik said...

[reefingood]

Slow down on feeding also. :)

[eleyan]

I'll give that a try. My regular water change is 40G, so I was trying to find an easier way, but I guess there are no short cuts in this hobby :) thanks for the help.
Regarding the cause though, do you think the colt is the culprit? I’ve heard before that leathers can start chemical war fare in a reef. I’ve never had any problems with it before, though. I’ve had it for 4 years and its been growing like crazy. I kept it under control by fraging it in half every 6 months or so.

[erick]

There are some nitrate absorbing products out there on the market, but IMO none work as good as water changes..... Save $$$ and do some daily changes... Run carbon if you feel you have allelopathic warfare going on inyour tank. It is a good idea to run carbon at least every other week anyways, IMO....

[alton]

When was the last time you changed or checked your lamps? This is what did my SPS in the first time. My lamps dropped 50% only after 8 months of life. Sometimes when things start going wrong we try everything to check our parameters when its just our lighting going bad.

[eleyan]

I've just replaced 2 of my MHs last week. I think my actenic PCs are old, but they are just for suppliment.

[matt]

This is probably a good tank for a remote deep sand bed. There's a huge thread on reefcentral about it. Basically you plumb a big bucket of sand into your system, keep it covered and keep water moving quickly through the bucket (or another tank, whatever.) This was either Calfo's or Eric Borneman's idea, if I remember, and the results have been pretty remarkable. You might see all your nitrates disappear in a few months.

Nitrates tend to build slowly and most test kits are not very good at measuring low levels, so it might be that you had a gradual build up, but until recently your test kit didn't read it.

[fishcrazy]

20 Isn't very high at all. Mine have always been about 20 until I tried adding maco algea to reduce and as it turns out adding the maco was like dropping a nitrate bomb, they doubled. Just do the water changes, you might check the tds of your water.

[aggie4231]

Water changes will be your best bet. To help with potential coral chemical warfare use some high quality carbon. Low levels of Nitrates are acceptable. The zooxanthelle in your corals will use nitrates, same thing with phosphates.