Nitrate & Phosphate

[Subskipper]

I started my tank up on Feb 10, which means it has been up for 2 months and I am experiencing a water quality problem:
Nitrates way up to 100+ppm and Phosphate up to over 3ppm.

My equipment: 65G, Salt 1.023, Ammonia less than .25, Nitrite 0. Protein skimmer, Eheim 2227 wet/dry, Emperor 400, Rio 600 for flow.

~60lbs of live rock, 1 bubble coral, 1 pacific anenome, 1 long tentacle anenome, 1 maroon/yellow banded clown, two percula clowns, 4 black/white damsel, 1 blue damsel, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 clam, 15 hermit crabs.

Question is what can I do about the high nitrates. Tonight I did a 10G water change. Could the spike in nitrates just be the nitrogen cycle coming to a close? Other than doing another water change, what should I do?

Thansk for your help

Bernard

[tendar]

Well there are a couple of things to help control your nitrates.
First the Eheim 2227 are general for swim only tanks with out live rock. They tend to produce nitrates as they suck extra foods and fish wastes then decay in there rasie nitrates. The emporer 400 is the same way. YOu can live and probably better off with out either of them on the tank since the live rock does the same thing as both of the and does a better job of it.
What type of water are you using in your tank?
Tap water is general not considered good and will raise your phosphate. A good RO/DI unit is best or at least RO water.
How often and how much do you feed the tank. Over feeding is one of the bigger causes for high nitrates. One decent feeding a day is plenty or 2 smaller feedings is better.
For now loose the Ehiem and Emporer and do a number of water changes 10-15 gall over the next week or so to lower the nitrates.

[mbeach66]

i also started a community tank around the same time as you did. I have never run into any nitrate problems, in fact teh highest i have ever gotten is 20ppm. I also have alot less livestock in my aquarium, perhaps the issue of your nitrates is you may have added to many things to your tank before it had a chance to develope. (if anyone can clarify that - it was a suggestion). however, when my nitrates hit around 20 its time for my 3 weekly water change anyways which drops it back down to 8-10ppm.
Lastly, tendar is right about the Reverse Osmosis water. I recently started using reverse osmosis and already notice a substantial diffference /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif