high range nitrate or Low range?

[Dburr1014]

I went down this road. Bought snails and a sea hare and did manual removal but untill I started dosing to get N and P at detectable levels the gha just thrived. Now that I have detectable levels of N and P the gha is starting to die off tho slowly. Romoving the rocks to clean is not an option for me.

Me also.
Sea hare died in 3 weeks and never touched it. Bought more snails, sometimes they are in the hair, not as often as I like.
I pull it manually weekly.
PO4 is at 0.1/0.08 constantly. NO3 is always <1.
I put calcium nitrate on a doser @ 40ml per day 2 weeks ago. I'm at 6 NO3 atm. Pulled it back to 35ml daily. Interesting enough, my PO4 is down to 0.05.
We'll see how it goes. Trying to stay about 10 NO3.

 

[Thomas Jedlicka]

Whats the difference between high-range nitrate or Low range Nitrates? Also, what do they affect on our tanks i.e. algae, chemistry?

I have lived in the 150+ Nitrate range with my large predatory FOWLR systems. from the high-range point of view, it does not really bother fish; if anything, I've noticed it makes them extremely resilient and adaptable when moving in lower-range systems. Almost as if the fish are "bulletproof". But in turn, having high nitrates messes with the balance of all sorts of things like phosphates and such, so algae is an absolute nuisance. This is what I have observed from FOWLR tanks at least I can not speak for reef.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley @olonmv
All I can say is I can now measure N and P where I couldn't before and the gha is dying off. Coincidence? Maybe I'm no chemist but getting zero everytime I tested was getting old so I started dosing N and P and gha is dying off and sps frags are looking better. Snails are not eating it as they are hanging out on the glass probably starving. The sea hare died in 3 days. Again I am no chemist but I have read that sometimes increasing the nutrients can fuel other things that can put compete the gha. Smoke and mirrors? I don't know, most of what goes on in my tanks is somewhat of a mystery to me. Also why I didn't "recommend" it

If may be coincidence, or competition for trace metals, which I do not think is necessarily a good way to go, but that depends on what else is in the tank.

 

[Privateye]

I'm kind of with Randy on this one. It's not necessarily coincidence that the hair algae is disappearing, but dosing nutrients to change the environment so it may promote something that out-competes GHA is kind of like turning the microbial environment into the wild West.

There could totally be a correlation, and there does seem to be with dinos, but there really isn't much research on using NO3 or PO4 to combat specific algae (hint hint if any biologists are reading). We're mostly going off anecdotal reports from the internet. It's kind of like how some people swear by using Vibrant and others say it just gave them different algae. If you're at your wit's end with an alga, then I totally understand using a variety of tools to treat it. I would hesitate to rock the boat like that in a stable system regardless of NO3 or PO4 levels though.

Heck, even changing my light parameters took a tank covered in GHA to clean in 4 weeks. First all of the GHA got covered by cyano, then after siphoning that off both stayed away. Go figure. It's an experience-based hobby and we all have different experience! IME cyano tends to capitalize on changes in parameters quicker than other types of "algae".

 

[exnisstech]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
I'm curious. When people have N and P at undetectable leves with nuisance algae I keep reading people saying the algae sucks up the nutrients fastet than they can be measured via testing. If this is in fact true that they suck them up that fast and they are undetectable in the water column because the alage sucked them up that fast how do the corals and other life forms get nutrients if there are none in the water column? Speaking of N and P. I'm just trying to figure this out not being argumentative. I've read so much conflicting information over that last 6 months it makes my head hurt. Should I not be dosing N and P to get levels detectable? I'm not doing it to combat algae but because most of what I read states zero and zero is a recipe for disaster. I didn't test yesterday but the day before I had N 8.0 and P 0.06. I don't dose every day just when they start approaching 0. I haven't gotten the amounts to being used up dialed in to dose a specific amount to keep an exact number daily
It's more or less hey P is getting low or N is getting low let's add some. More often than not it's one or the other ussualy N. Sorry if this sounds confusing but I'm somewhat confused (pretty much my normal state ) Sorry for the thread hijack @leighton.bingham but I'm hoping maybe there is someone else that may benifit from the discussion.

 

[leighton.bingham]

I’m learning a ton. Just reading. I did go home today changing my light schedule and the GHA is gone on two of the four frag plugs I have. I was ready to dip them in peroxide.

 

[leighton.bingham]

Update on the low range nitrate and phosphates. The GHA is gone and the levels are detectable now. Very low levels I guess due to the GHA being gone cause of the lighting??

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
I'm curious. When people have N and P at undetectable leves with nuisance algae I keep reading people saying the algae sucks up the nutrients fastet than they can be measured via testing. If this is in fact true that they suck them up that fast and they are undetectable in the water column because the alage sucked them up that fast how do the corals and other life forms get nutrients if there are none in the water column? Speaking of N and P. I'm just trying to figure this out not being argumentative. I've read so much conflicting information over that last 6 months it makes my head hurt. Should I not be dosing N and P to get levels detectable? I'm not doing it to combat algae but because most of what I read states zero and zero is a recipe for disaster. I didn't test yesterday but the day before I had N 8.0 and P 0.06. I don't dose every day just when they start approaching 0. I haven't gotten the amounts to being used up dialed in to dose a specific amount to keep an exact number daily
It's more or less hey P is getting low or N is getting low let's add some. More often than not it's one or the other ussualy N. Sorry if this sounds confusing but I'm somewhat confused (pretty much my normal state ) Sorry for the thread hijack @leighton.bingham but I'm hoping maybe there is someone else that may benifit from the discussion.

In that scenario, the low nutrients are not low just because algae is sucking them up but corals too. It’s not an either or situation. Both can drive them down.

Forgetting algae, undetectable nutrients risks a worse problem: dinos. I’d feed more or dose.