balancing PO4 and NO3

Randy Holmes-Farley

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slightly off topic but I thoroughly cleaned the algea off the glass and rocks as best i could. However I noticed it starting to grow right back with small little white specs that look like little pieces of sand covering the rocks. Should I do a black out for a few days to try to get rid of whatever this is? Will the chaeto be able outcompete it?

I'm not sure what the specs are, but it might be coralline algae or bacteria.
 
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mdd1986

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I have zero coralline algea in this tank as of right now. I think that is mostly due to the extend period of low ALK and Calc. Now that I'm maintaining the levels I'm hoping it will start to grow. I did try that coralline in a bottle stuff but didn't seem to do much.
 

Seminoles76

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IMHO, if you started with all dry rock...throw about ten pounds of live rock in. Option 2 is to fight what your fighting now for another four to five months until the tank gets some biodiversity.
You may not have coralline if you have not introduced any via rock, etc.
As for balancing levels. I would drop mg a bit and raise ca a bit. And I would take the no3 dosing really slow. IME, with a young tank, the more things you dose the longer it takes for the setup to find its natural equilibrium and then you start chasing your tail.
Hope you get it worked out.
Cheers
 
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mdd1986

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great points for sure. I wanted to avoid any live rock in my tank due to dealing with hitchhikers. Otherwise I would have just done all live rock. I'm using Fritz salt which as unbelievable high Magnesium level right out of the box. I have stopped dosing it all together at this point? Is there something I can do to lower it? I'm willing to wait as long as the tank will stabilize but the way things were going, it just didn't look like that way s going to happen. I think at this point I will only dose 1-2PPM NO3 every 2 days to see how the tank reacts. I do agree that chasing numbers is never a good idea.
 

Seminoles76

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Yeah, I hear you on the hitchhikers. When I added ten pounds I cured it for about 6 days and inspected closely. As for the mag, as long as you have stopped dosing it, the mag should gradually fall to the level that is contained in the Fritz salt. I always found running all parameters closer to nsw to be the easiest. When parameters are at nsw, you can pretty much rule them out as a cause of any problem in the tank.
I only mentioned the 10 pounds of live rock because at month 8 or 9 I was still struggling with a bb, all dry rock start. As soon as I added ten pounds live rock everything did a 180. Before the live rock, I was dealing with madness in the tank wrt ugly phases, coral death, etc. and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
 
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mdd1986

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It may come to that for sure. I will have to find a good source of live rock. Last time i bought it locally it was filled with flat worms and other critters I did not want.
 

Seminoles76

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I hear ya. It's about the same for us locally. If you do ever decide too pull the trigger; KP Aquatics was a good source for me. There one of the standard vendors down in Fl. I also liked them because they were one of the few that would overnight 10lbs of rock. Think the price was around 90$ or in that area. Rock came in clean with nice sponge and coralline on it. Good luck getting things turned around.
 

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