My tank is about 3 months old, having spent the first 6 weeks with the lights off and clownfish as the source of ammonia to cycle.
Well I turn the lights on (Red Sea LED90s) and did an acclimation from 50% to their 100% recommendation. This resulted in a brutal hair algae breakout. I've tested my water using the Hanna Checkers and my nitrates consistently read 0, but my phosphates are hovering around .38-.44 no matter how much I change the water, manually remove the algae, feed less, etc. Regardless, the limited corals I have are definitely suffering from the lack of nitrates, or so I think. My alk was a little low as I'm using the Tropic Marin Pro salt, which mixes at 7dKH, but I don't think it's the root cause of the recessed tissue of the corals.
Anyway, I'm at a bit of a loss. I don't want to simply feed more to bring nitrates up because that will increase my phosphates. Do I dose something like Neo Nitro? I'm also aware that the numbers I get when testing are the remnants of what the algae hasn't taken up, so my phosphates might be a heck of a lighter higher.
I started the tank with dry rock and fresh sand. The rock was from a previous setup, so maybe it's leaching PO4? Any advice would be helpful. At this point I might set up my QT tank as a nursery and run a blackout on the tank to kill off the algae and effectively "start over".
Well I turn the lights on (Red Sea LED90s) and did an acclimation from 50% to their 100% recommendation. This resulted in a brutal hair algae breakout. I've tested my water using the Hanna Checkers and my nitrates consistently read 0, but my phosphates are hovering around .38-.44 no matter how much I change the water, manually remove the algae, feed less, etc. Regardless, the limited corals I have are definitely suffering from the lack of nitrates, or so I think. My alk was a little low as I'm using the Tropic Marin Pro salt, which mixes at 7dKH, but I don't think it's the root cause of the recessed tissue of the corals.
Anyway, I'm at a bit of a loss. I don't want to simply feed more to bring nitrates up because that will increase my phosphates. Do I dose something like Neo Nitro? I'm also aware that the numbers I get when testing are the remnants of what the algae hasn't taken up, so my phosphates might be a heck of a lighter higher.
I started the tank with dry rock and fresh sand. The rock was from a previous setup, so maybe it's leaching PO4? Any advice would be helpful. At this point I might set up my QT tank as a nursery and run a blackout on the tank to kill off the algae and effectively "start over".