I'm heading this way. I either have no po4 or too much. Same with nitrates. It's number chasing yet I do not want no3 above 20. Frustrating! Yet I have amazing coral growth right now. Just added 1 urchin and a sea cucumber and about 40 snails and 40 hermits and 2 emeralds and will keep adding clean up crews.Today I picked up 2 pincushion urchins! I already had 1, but after I saw the type of work it did to the rocks and algae, I just needed to get more!
(Urchins don’t need to be quarantined as parasites can’t encyst onto them.)
When I come back from my 5 day trip from Las Vegas, I will pick up a bunch of Mexican turbos:
My LFS had a bunch in stock, but I didn’t want to make any purchases for the quarantine tank right before leaving.
I learned that you cannot control algae by lowering phosphates/nitrates. In order to limit algae, you need to get phosphates below 0.03ppm IMO, and my tanks are prone to getting dinos when nutrients get that low.
I believe the recommendation to lower phosphates for the sole purpose of controlling algae is a fruitless endeavor. It’s just not going to work for most cases.
The best control for algae IMO is herbivores and allowing the rocks to get filled with beneficial organisms to outcompete the algae (like corals). Not to lower nutrients.
It took me a while to get to this mindset because I was indoctrination to believe acros need ultra low nutrients, but time and time again, people grow them in “high” nutrients, while the people trying low nutrients get dinos and possibly even bleaching.