When To Retest Water For Nitrates Please!

[marina]

Hi there, new to forum and find it very helpfull. many moons ago had 5ft reef tank with all usual hardware everything put in there thrived a little too much!! had an anemone eat my beloved puffa!! had to install new tank just to hold my rapidly growing batfish approx 14" high. anyhow kids and space meant had to get rid of my beloved tanks and robin me old mate batfish to new loving home. anyhow missed it all so much just got a new tank 3ft x 12" x 24" high brain gone dead on my previous knowledge but remembering slowly. anyhow this was a second hand mature set up. no fish just the substrate living rock and hardware ex eheim, protein skimmer (i added) 402 uplift. oh and a reef lobster very happy! i also brought all the water with me. nitrite 0 amonia 0 but me nitrates are sky high!! set up here for 10 days done 2 partial water changes 1st last week 20 - 25% and today 15%. when best to do another nitrate test after water change. thanks in advance

 

[SkiFletch]

As long as there are a bunch of recirculating powerheads in the tank, an hour or so should turn it over enough to mix in the new water and give you an accurate nitrate reading. Out of curiosity, how high were they?

Edit: Nice tank, I've got the same one

 

[marina]

As long as there are a bunch of recirculating powerheads in the tank, an hour or so should turn it over enough to mix in the new water and give you an accurate nitrate reading. Out of curiosity, how high were they?

Edit: Nice tank, I've got the same one

the highest it can be ..........100mg/litre i know it has had a lot of disruption but thought would be a little lower at least......any other ideas of how to get it down would be great. got loads of recirculation in tank really airating at the mo to try to shift the nitrate. i am trying to get this tank perfect (i know nearly impossible for reef & fish marine tank ) wife is desperate to add couple of clown fish i want to wait until totally optimum conditions. would this addition firstly add to the problem (considering amo 0 and nitrite 0) and secondly do NOT want to hurt any fishwhat do you think

 

[SkiFletch]

Umm, holy cow off your scale?!?!?!

I wouldn't add anything yet. My first question though is are you sure that your test kit is accurate? I'd take a sample to your LFS to make sure. If you do in fact have that kind of crazy nitrate levels and you dont have anything other than LR in there, I'd do a 100% water change before I even thought about adding fish. Those are not the kind of levels that can be lowered slowly. Any fish added to that environment would die in a few days

 

[Jeff20147]

Sounds like your using tap water, some area the tap is known to have high nitrates like your describing. Run a test on your tap water, and if thats what it is invest in a RO machine that does you tank gallons per day or a little lower. I have a 100GPD for my 150 and it takes a day to fill my rubbmaid 30 gallon mix container!