Amonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate

[ekaser]

I have a 125 gal. reef tank. I tested my water and found amonia, nitrite, and nitrate. The amonia and nitrite has been non-existent for more than a year. I have had this tank as a fish only tank for more than 15 years. When I moved it home from my office a year ago last February I began to convert it to a reef tank. I have not lost any fish, but some of the soft corals are not happy. My pulsating xenia, that was flourishing last week, has almost disappeared. My ritteria anemone is as happy as can be. My derasa clam shows no signs of stress.

I have been very careful to monitor water quality. I have had traces of nitrate but nothing else until tonight.

I have two wet/dry systems that had DLS material in them at one time. I removed the material from one tower when I moved the tank home. I removed the material from the other tower about 6 weeks ago.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Ed

[bigfoot]

maybe new LR addition? missing fish? any nitrate factories ie filter pads bio balls? sponges that need cleaned bio balls should be rinsed often maybe the removal of your dls material had a bigger effect on the bacterial side= mini cycle till bacteria catch up?

[FishinInTheDark]

New fish additions? Feeding more than usual? Dying xenia can release nutrients that might stress the biofilter. I'm brainstorming here. . .

[Doctor_Reef]

Wow.... I had that happen to a Fish only system and found that the bacteria bed was almost non-existant.... To this day I have no idea what happened.... For your reef tank with LR any of the above ideas could be the problem.... I might ask if you put your hands in the tank much? If so do you use any anti-bacterial hand lotion or soap??? I am fishing here also... Have you done anything different or added any thing????

[bigfoot]

get some biozyme or cycle at lfs i like cycle myself i just triple dosage

[MikeS]

hmmm...you removed material from the W/D six weeks ago...this will impact your aerobic filtration...in a tank as established as yours, the effects may be slow to show themselves, ie the nutrient input may have simply just now exceeded the tanks biological capaicty to handle it.

Any other recent major changes to the tank?

[ekaser]

After reading all the suggestions, the one I did not think of was the hands in the water. I was working with amonia last weekend and probably did not have my hands and forearms clean enough. I am sure the nitrite and nitrates are somewhat related to removing the DLS material. I plan on putting some base rock in the tower to filter the water across.

I will make some heavier than normal water changes and make sure my arms are clean.

I will let you know how I make out. Thank you all for the ideas.

Ed