Help me understand nitrate and phosphates

[abw75]

I was in a similar situation - chasing low no3 and po4 ( as I knew from the past) using Nopox and po4 binders until my tank crashed - most corals died and in few days gha and cyano took over. Ugliest tank ever gha covered by cyano. Sand, rocks and even pumps covered by red slime. My panic thought was that I have too much nutrients, so increased nopox dosing, more po4 absorber and even a much bigger skimmer- just to make things even worst

This happened after 5 years in the hobby

Just before drying out my tank I decided to read and learn a bit more...
So my actions in last few months:
- stop any nopox, PO4 absorbers, etc
- increase feeding - still didn’t helped as had 0 & 0 even after weeks, but fishes happy
- started dosing NO3 - took some time, but now stable at 20
- started dosing PO4 - even 0,2 / day just to measure 0,01 next day. Still dosing it after couple of months (0,02/day) to keep it stable at around 0,04. Probably will go a bit higher soon (0,1)
- Things getting slowly better, but not great. Next step was dosing H2O2 to eradicate remaining cyano and gha.
My tank looks again great and lesson learned is I need both no3 and po4. Also most probably will keep the H2O2 dosing for long period

 

[Privateye]

I may have missed it, but how long ago did you transfer tanks?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks Randy.
What do I do about the algae problem? Get more CUC? The brown hair algae is starting to choke off some of my coral.

The best way to deal with normal hair algae is, IMO, to get something that eats it, not by tweaking chemistry.

 

[nukemdanno]

So my questions are:
1. Should I dose Nitrate and or phosphate?
2. Why are my N&P readings still 0.1 and zero?
3. If I dose N&P, won't that make the algae bloom worse? I'd almost rather have faded corals than have algae growth!
4. Should I continue skimming? wet or dry?
5. Should I grow cheato? what is the benefit of cheato when N&P is measuring so low?
6. I see people growing cheato and using their skimmer and adding N&P on a regular basis, but isn't that counter acting to each other?

I'm sure I'll have more questions but these are the main issues at the time for me.
Thanks for all your suggestions.

I dose Nitrate (stump remover) to keep up with the tanks consumption. 2.5ppm-5ppm per day. I had a similar issue with my Chaeto which turned brittle and broke apart. Since dosing the Chaeto has exploded and has to be harvested weekly. I skim wet, As far as the Phosphate goes I have sodium phosphate to does but haven't had a need yet. My PhO4 stays around .05ppm with feeding my fish and feeding the corals Reef Roids

 

[ReefDude716]

I'm an old school reefer who's been in the hobby for over 20 years.
The reason for my need to understand it is so that I can get my SPS to color up without causing an algae outbreak. The colors on all my SPS (montis, acros, stylos, birdsnests) are fading. They no longer have any pop in the coloration. Most of the softies are fine, such as zoas. The LPS are loosing some color and retracting a bit. The growth on SPS are slow but there is steady growth.
Parameters using Salifert test kits:
Calcium: 490
Alkalinity: 8.7
pH: 8.1
Mag: 1420
Nitrates: 0.10
Phosphates: 0.0 using salifert and Hanna Checker.
Temp 79
Tank size is 150 gal with 35 gal sump. I upgraded my tank from a 90 gal (was running for 15 years) to this 150 gal in March 2020. I just did a tank transfer and kept all the live rocks and livestock. 5 fish. mixed reef. CUC consists of 10 hermit crabs.
CUC size is small because they always die off after a while and prior to tank upgrade I didn't have algae.

In the old days everyone wanted zero or close to zero nitrates and phosphates. But in the past few years I understand that this is not so good for corals, especially SPS. So now I need to have low levels of N&P to keep corals happy.
Many people still grow macro algae, cheato reactors, or algae reactors to export N&P. In fact, I was growing cheato for a while but I think the nutrients were too low after some point and they started to melt away. Another form of removing N&P is using a protein skimmer. I have a skimmer and usually run it on the wet side such that I empty and clean the cup every 2 to 3 days.

Since the colors started to fade in the corals in the new tank, last month I decided to raise N&P by feeding more and using reef roids, reef chile, and frozen mysis as well as a bunch of flake food. I feed 2-3 times per day, instead of once every other day.
I've also stopped skimming wet and skim extremely dry, ie I don't even have a full cup of skimmate in 1 week. I've discontinued the GFO reactor. I have no macro algae in the sump.
For the past month, the readings of the Nitrate and Phosphate has not changed a bit. The coloration has not improved. But my big reward is an ugly algae bloom. It looks like brown hair algae.

So my questions are:
1. Should I dose Nitrate and or phosphate?
2. Why are my N&P readings still 0.1 and zero?
3. If I dose N&P, won't that make the algae bloom worse? I'd almost rather have faded corals than have algae growth!
4. Should I continue skimming? wet or dry?
5. Should I grow cheato? what is the benefit of cheato when N&P is measuring so low?
6. I see people growing cheato and using their skimmer and adding N&P on a regular basis, but isn't that counter acting to each other?

I'm sure I'll have more questions but these are the main issues at the time for me.
Thanks for all your suggestions.

Well I think 6 people have it as a safe guard so that it won’t spike as much as say they didn’t have chateo to begin with. Also chateo is a great spot for copepods to reproduce which is overall good for almost all types of tanks especially if you have fish that typical main diet are copepods. World corals even keeps there phosphates at .08.
never would recommend gfo. I Know two people really well that each own coral stores and have been in the hobby for 30+ years. Ulns systems aren’t hard from what I hear because the smallest change say phosphates go to zero you will seek paleness and sometimes stn. Even if you had .08 phosphates you wound see alage blooms. I just use nopox each day to help keep stability however I plan on trying some bioballs. If you still see issues getting measurable phosphates it would be safe to use brightwell aquatics neophos just use a very small amount like 1ml at a time. Get a Hannah low range or even the Hannah checker ulr they are one of the bests phosphate checkers and you can get a 100 pack of reagents for like 30 dollars so if you only check even 2 a week it last You almost a year and test only takes 5 min.

 

[Big E]

Get more fish, don't feed coral foods.

You have already removed export tools which is good..............you want to keep it simple if you can. All the extra tools are crutches/add ons that most people don't need.

I agree as other have said, up your clean up crew. They eat the new algae growing and keep the nutrients cycling in the system to create more of a balance.
Crabs are terrible for algae consumption and they kill snails for the shells and don't really earn their keep.

It also helps to baste your rocks at least weekly......it will get detritus suspended into the water column where corals can feast on it before it gets swept away and cleaned up by your skimmer in the sump. The reduction of detritus will keep the algae from growing so fast and also allow for more desirable coraline algae to take hold faster.

I would only dose liquid phosphate and nitrate to get things in line short term, once the system creates it's own balance you should not have to dose on a continuous basis.

 

[blasterman]

More fish = more nitrate, and nitrate is easy to elevate. Just turn the skimmer off and remove cheato. IMO, a trace of nitrate is the same as 30ppm. As long as its available in the water column in some amount for coral uptake.

Phosphate is the wild card. I can tell that dense levels of SPS do fixate phosphate because I can't keep it detectable in my fast growing montipora tanks without dosing it.

Knee jerk obsevation over the years is nitrate affects softies and LPS to a greater degree while phosphate is quasi related to SPS health.

 

[Lasse]

Whats you measure ( PO4 and NO3) in the water column is only the left over - the nutrients not consumed. The left over (for me - around 0,08 and 5 ppm of PO4 and NO3) is my safety concentration if something going wrong with the dosing. Ideal for me is to stay at these levels - I use Chaeto as a part of the total system as @Sallstrom and @ReefDude716 outlined. If I need to dose in order to have them to thrive - it is OK - they are the part of the whole system and have other rolls than only take up nutrients too.

I use GFO sometimes but want to get rid of it. Next time when I reading zero in PO4 - I will not use GFO any more - just dosing PO4. And be careful not to go to high as long as I can dose the daily consumption. If you dose PO4 and NO3 you can read 0 in leftover - you will have your daily flush of nutrient any way. But IMO is the best to read some left over - because when you know when your dosing is to low.

And I think we should execute the old myth that PO4 and NO3 are only give you an algae problem. Yes algae need this nutrients - they are photosynthetic organism - but the same is valid for the Zooxanthellae of corals - they also need it. It is a lack of grazers that give you an algae problem - nothing else

Sincerely Lasse