High phosphate and 0 nitrate?
- Thread starter Joshb757
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Common? No. Possible? Yes.
Could you tell us a bit more about your system, your nutrient import and export and your test kits/how you measured those values?
Could you tell us a bit more about your system, your nutrient import and export and your test kits/how you measured those values?
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Joshb757
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It’s a Fluval flex 32.5 g. I feed reef roofs once a week and frozen mysis every other day for 10 coral and 2 clowns. I have a clean up crew of 20 various snails, 3 hermits, and 1 emerald crab. I run a protein skimmer 24/7 and do 18% water changes weekly. I just started vacuuming the sand bed 6 weeks ago. I also dose vibrant once a week. I used api nitrate test kit that’s not expired and Hanna phosphate checker
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Joshb757
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I also run chemipure elite
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Joshb757
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The day before
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Joshb757
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Cyano and gha
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Joshb757
Community Member
I meant the day after
I'm assuming you have a skimmer. You might be over skimming too. When your nitrates are low and phos are high, with your skimmer pulling in alot of nitrogen in the system, it will grow like crazy because you just gave it every thing it wants and the good bacteria don't even have a chance to compete. Therefore, you get an outbreak.
@Joshb757 . Two things immediately come to mind with your test results. It's not uncommon that people report very high phosphate levels a the day of or a day after dosing reef roids. I've seen the exact scenario play out in my tank. I'm not suggesting your phosphate is or isn't elevated, but I wouldn't be surprised if your 2.0 wasn't necessarily accurate. If you have the ability, try testing your phosphate a few days after your reef roids are dosed or right before dosing. That might give you a better estimate.
The second point is that depending on how much GHA you have in your tank, your nitrate value may be misleading. GHA is great at incorporating nitrate from the water, as a result, it's not uncommon to have 0 nitrate, which is to say, there is limited free nitrate in the water. If the green hair algae wasn't present, your nutrient levels could be much higher. It's not uncommon that someone that previously has a value of 0 removes all their GHA from their tank only to discover a few weeks later that their tank is reading extremely high nitrates.
This is all to say that I wouldn't put too much weight in either result right now. I would instead focus on the problem at hand. It is likely that both your nitrate and phosphate are elevated and this is driving the cyanobacteria and green hair algae.
The second point is that depending on how much GHA you have in your tank, your nitrate value may be misleading. GHA is great at incorporating nitrate from the water, as a result, it's not uncommon to have 0 nitrate, which is to say, there is limited free nitrate in the water. If the green hair algae wasn't present, your nutrient levels could be much higher. It's not uncommon that someone that previously has a value of 0 removes all their GHA from their tank only to discover a few weeks later that their tank is reading extremely high nitrates.
This is all to say that I wouldn't put too much weight in either result right now. I would instead focus on the problem at hand. It is likely that both your nitrate and phosphate are elevated and this is driving the cyanobacteria and green hair algae.
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Joshb757
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I have about this much gha? I didn’t think this was enough to strip the nitrates but i don’t know anything about nothing.
Has it always looked that way. It's a fair, but manageable amount of growth. It definitely took up some of your nitrates. I suspect the rest of your nitrates may have been exported via your protein skimmer and vibrant - did the vibrant reduce the amount of hair algae in the tank?
I'm glad you asked your question when you did! It looks like you have a few patches of cyanobacteria starting to crop up, as lion king predicted. It will be good to get on top of that sooner rather than later by troubleshooting your nutrient levels and getting them to a better level/ratio.
I'm glad you asked your question when you did! It looks like you have a few patches of cyanobacteria starting to crop up, as lion king predicted. It will be good to get on top of that sooner rather than later by troubleshooting your nutrient levels and getting them to a better level/ratio.
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Joshb757
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No it was worse lol. I got sick of looking at it and removed about 40% of my rock in an attempt to decrease the algae population, provide better flow through tank, and allow me access to vacuum more area of the sand bed. The vibrant never reduced any gha or cyano in my tank, it did get rid of diatoms and bubble algae, I just never stopped dosing It. So after reading this thread I assume my next course of action would be to decrease skimming drastically, stop dosing vibrant, stop using reef roids, and feed more?
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Yes it’s very possible but treat them separately. You need to reduce your phosphate and a good target is 0.03ppm. You need to increase your nitrate to around 5-10ppm.
There are various methods for each, over feeding, more fish for nitrates and maybe GFO for phosphate. I personally use rowaphos for phosphate control
In a reef tank just treat each element/nutrient as a separate situation and you need to have systems in place to deal with each as necessary
There are various methods for each, over feeding, more fish for nitrates and maybe GFO for phosphate. I personally use rowaphos for phosphate control
In a reef tank just treat each element/nutrient as a separate situation and you need to have systems in place to deal with each as necessary
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