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As you all know i have been having trouble with my tank along with algae everywhere so i took 1 rock at a time and brushed it off very lighly in a bucket of tank water for min die off! and i notice that my rocks smell like a filter that is pass due on a change like from a canister or power filter!

Does that mean anything to you all as i have been reading nitrates from 40-160ppm

I have no ammonia or nitries!

A side note you can only smell it if you get like 3 in from your nose to the rock so its not like it is smelling the hole house up or anything like that just thought maybe this means after 4 mo. the rocks are still curing or sumthing i donno let me know what you all think, Thanks

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

Smelly rock indicates dieoff, which means that your live rock may not be fully cured. How long have you had it?

Since you have no ammonia or nitrite, it just might be that the rock is still curing but has built up the bacteria that eliminates ammonia and nitrite. The dead stuff would be what is raising your nitrate levels.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Unless the rocks are new scrubbing them will probably only increase your nitrate levels and possibly ammonia and nitrite as well. You need to do water changes and lots of them. That's the only good way to lower nitrates from that level. Longterm you could setup a refugium with some macro to help keep the levels low and lessen the need for future water changes but for now you need to be changing out the water preferably with water that has zero nitrate to begin with.

4mo later stuff is still dieing off? Thats odd why would it do that?

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2

It could well be the nitrate levels. Many invertebrates are highly intolerant of nitrates. I don't know how long ago the nitrate problem came up, but it seems like the probable cause.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Scrubbing rocks will cause die off. Even keeping it in a bucket. Any time you remove rocks from the tank or move them around you cause at least a tiny bit of die off. Usually it's not noticeable but if you were scrubbing them you could have killed enough of the life on the rocks to cause a slight smell as well as increasing the nitrates even more. The high nitrates will also most definitely kill some invertebrates and other things that could be living on the rock. Like I said any testable nitrates and my feather dusters go into hiding.

I don't think starting a new thread will change the proper answer to your question. You need to get those nitrates down below 5-10 ppm (and like sham said, preferably below testing limits), and to do that you need to do copious amounts of water changes with pure water. How you decide to get the pure water is up to you, I've helped all I can there. If it were me I'd probably be doing 25% 2-3 times a week.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

nitrates are down to 15 with tap water having 10 thats the best its getting for now!

I started a new post as this was a different thing!

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2571255/2