Algae + Low nutrients - chicken & egg problem here

[criscorrea]

Hello Reefers,

So its 10 weeks since I put the tank together. Have a bunch of frags. Most are doing fine, but my rock is completely covered in GHA. I have 2 tangs that keep it real short, but
1.- Everything is green which is ugly
2.- I think the algae is sucking all NO3 and PO4 out of the water.

Since day 1 I've struggled to keep any reading what so ever with NO3 and PO4. When I first introduced the frags they all started loosing color fast, so I decided to up my feeding, stop my skimmer, and add nitrogen and phosphate to the tank. This helped with the corals, most bounced, but algae keeps growing... I'm feeding like crazy and still cant keep nitrate above 1ppm and phosphate above 0. I mean, I'll add seachem flourish phosphorus in the morning, measure 30 minutes later and yes, there's like 0.01 phosphate, then measure again in the evening and all phosphate has completely disappeared from the water.

Everything I read says to keep low phosphates and algae will go away, but this is not the case for me...
I have a pair of orphek's PR156wb's, half white half blue leds, can't control the spectrum.

So, I've ordered a couple of radions, they should be here in 3 weeks, hopefully AB+ spectrum will help. I'm also thinking of doing the following
1.- Taking out most of the water from the tank and spraying the rocks with hydrogen peroxide, then put water back in the tank. Fairly quickly, lets say in 15 minutes, making sure the keep frags moist all the time
2.- Wait a couple of days for algae to die off and scrape it off off the rocks
3.- Perform a 25% water change
4.- Cutting down on feeding. I'm currently feeding fishes like 6 times a day to try to keep some nutrients in the water + feeding coral every night.

Any ideas?? Is this crazy?

Here's a pic of the tank

 

[twilliard]

That does sound like the start of a good plan.
Keep in mind that this algae's structure is easily spread. If you do any scrubbing make sure you rinse the rock thoroughly. Any small section left can potentially start growing.

 

[criscorrea]

Ok, the plan has been executed. I drained like 70% of the water an exposed most of the rock to the air, at least where theres the most algae and sprayed 8ml of hydrogen peroxide (1ml per gallon) in the algae. The upper most coral (pink monti) was exposed to air for 13 minutes, I did splash occasionally to keep them all wet throughout the operation. Everyone in the tank looks ok. I'll report results in a couple of days!

 

[tnw50cal]

Read about the ugly stages of a new tank. Your in one.

 

[criscorrea]

I have! And watched the BRS videos and everything.. just not sure how to ride it out. Should I keep feeding like a pig to maintain some nutrients for the corals to survive or should I lower my nutrient import so the algae goes away? I'm worried this will also starve my sps to death.... I dosed Microbacter clear for 2 weeks daily, not sure I saw much improvement with that... should I keep at it? Switch to microbacter 7? So many options!