Change in Algae - Whoa Nelly, or No problem?

[IPT]

So, I have a mature (10+ years old swapped to SPS mostly about 3 years ago) mixed 120 gal reef (40 gal sump). I'm getting good growth and pretty good colors. I had to start dosing some No3 and P04 and while ago due to being 0 all the time. I am still often getting 0ppm for Po4 and maybe 2-3ppm for No3. I increased my feeding (pellets up to 2xday) along with the usual brine and mysis 1x a few weeks ago.

Also, I started a frag tank in the sump, with a light of course. I noticed right away crazy fast hair algae growth in the sump. I have zero of it in my display tank (or course I have a large rabbit fish and Scopas tang in there with a bunch of snails). I chalked it up to no one eating it in the sump (recently added a baby tang and rabbit fish that I intend to swap out with the local fish store as they grow out for new babies).

Anyway, I also noticed more algae growth in the overflow which I never had. Now, fish have never been in there so nothing really changed...except I am getting more and new hair algae growth there. Todays testing revealed .06ppm Po4 and 4.6ppm No3 (Hanna). Alk of 7.9 (which I would like to bump up but don't think affects algae though I may be mistaken).

I'm a bit stumped. Should I increase my dosing to hit my goal of 10 ppm No3; or instead just keep dosing "some" (current amounts) even if I am at 0ppm? Of course I'll know it is testing 0 but there will be Po4 and No3 in the system because of my feeding and dosing.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

 

[BryanM]

I would bump up the dosing for nitrate if it were me. And if phos goes back down I'd bump that up too, and I would do it until you get consistent readings in the 10-20 range, and .06 up to .3 for me for phos.

I don't really have any answers for the algae issues. With zero I would not have been surprised if you had dinos.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

You'll get different comments here, but me personally I've always had the belief system that algae consumes nutrients faster than corals and binds it in the tissue, IMO trying to increase the nutrients is feeding the algae, not the corals. Personally I've always taken the approach to starve the system, this causes the algae to die which releases nutrients from its tissue into the water, feeding the algae more, so keep starving the system. I know the popular approach is to increase nutrients for fear of dino's, but dino's is another algae that consumes nutrients, therefore also showing 0-0 on tests, just like yours, because it has consumed the nutrients from water. This is what I believe from my experience and from the reading that I've done. Good luck to you.

 

[IPT]

I would bump up the dosing for nitrate if it were me. And if phos goes back down I'd bump that up too, and I would do it until you get consistent readings in the 10-20 range, and .06 up to .3 for me for phos.

I don't really have any answers for the algae issues. With zero I would not have been surprised if you had dinos.

yeah, I am leaning more in this direction I think. I'm not at zero anymore (at the moment) and even if I test at 0 I know nutrients are there just being consumed because I am dosing them.

 

[IPT]

You'll get different comments here, but me personally I've always had the belief system that algae consumes nutrients faster than corals and binds it in the tissue, IMO trying to increase the nutrients is feeding the algae, not the corals. Personally I've always taken the approach to starve the system, this causes the algae to die which releases nutrients from its tissue into the water, feeding the algae more, so keep starving the system. I know the popular approach is to increase nutrients for fear of dino's, but dino's is another algae that consumes nutrients, therefore also showing 0-0 on tests, just like yours, because it has consumed the nutrients from water. This is what I believe from my experience and from the reading that I've done. Good luck to you.

I think you are right that algae consumes it fast because it seem like my algae growth went up a little as I increased my dosing. Before dosing I had 0 all the time and I did in fact have dinos. As I got the numbers up some, the dinos went away.

Guess I will just add more herbivores and tinker and see what happens :)