How do you combat false nutrient test due to algae

reef’r

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 2, 2023
Messages
913
Reaction score
534
Location
reef’d
What state or country do you live in
Florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I’ve been dealing with bubble algae for awhile now trying to go manual removal and natural predators to get rid of it. In the mean time my nutrients are testing low NO3 has been at zero and PO4 has been around .04-.01. I’ve added a little of both from a bottle here and there and have done some increased feedings but I know I have nutrients in the tank it’s just being consumed by corals and algae. I have reinforcement coming from reef cleaners for my cleanup crew tomorrow but anyway just wondering how you go about keeping good readings of nutrient in the tank and not overfeed and end up with a nutrient bomb or opening the door for some other type of algae like GHA but also don’t want things to bottom out and possibly get Dino’s
 
Personally I would not be dosing or even be
concerned about nutrients when there is an algae problem.
 
I’ve been dealing with bubble algae for awhile now trying to go manual removal and natural predators to get rid of it. In the mean time my nutrients are testing low NO3 has been at zero and PO4 has been around .04-.01. I’ve added a little of both from a bottle here and there and have done some increased feedings but I know I have nutrients in the tank it’s just being consumed by corals and algae. I have reinforcement coming from reef cleaners for my cleanup crew tomorrow but anyway just wondering how you go about keeping good readings of nutrient in the tank and not overfeed and end up with a nutrient bomb or opening the door for some other type of algae like GHA but also don’t want things to bottom out and possibly get Dino’s
"False nutrient tests" is a funny idea the hobby has cooked up.

That idea is false.

The readings are accurate though unless you're doing the test wrong or the kit is expired.

Hopefully you aren't adding too many cleaners at once......that tends to be the case so shipping is worth it. 😬

High nutrients don't cause algae blooms.

Algae isn't kept at bay by keeping nutrients at zero.

Most of the conventional wisdom on the topic is just wrong.

Pest algae are just excellent competitors....their spores are easily airborne, so they are as omnipresent as just about anything. They compete for space by easily settling those spores and they sprout and survive easily.

Keeping nutrients elevated to a minimum availability level will allow less aggressive cometitors a chance to move into the tanks spaces as well.

Removing pest algae manually is the best solution for it – that's how it's done in the wild. You're the main member of the cleanup crew that's responsible for this. Algae eating snails are your henchmen – they are the ones you want cleaning up those spores and sprouts on a moment to moment basis. You just need enough that they are able to cover the surface area of your tank 24/7. (Not so many that they cause each other to starve to death tho.)

Algae is natural on a reef – eradication should not be the plan. It just shouldn't dominate.
 
Bubble algae will go away eventually if you keep nutrients low for a long time. And dino's will too.

The order that nuisance algae are removed from your system, when reducing nutrients in the water, is usually like this:

The physically weaker photosynthesizing algae, which are any of the brown dusty types like diatoms or dino's, go away first because they don't pull nutrients out of the water very well because they can't anchor strongly, and thus they can't make use of strong water current (much less, turbulent air/water interfaces) which remove the boundary layer barrier of water insulating the algae. Also they only form on surfaces, which stops flow from going through them. So they are fast growing but physically weak filters, and need lots of nutrients; when nutrients in the water first start to drop, these algae can't survive. But they are quick to start growing on any new surface that becomes available, such as sand, when nutrients first start to go low.

Next comes GHA (green hair algae), which has more of a translucent "antenna" to catch flow and light; it can extract nutrients from the water longer, and anchor in high flow and turbulent air/water interfaces better (which removes the boundary layer barrier of water insulating the algae), and thus survive by extracting nutrients even when nutrients are barely available. This is of course, until GHA is eaten by fish! And since a lot of GHA attaches to rock, as long as phosphate is flowing out of the rock, there will be GHA on it.

Next come the tough ones that grow slower but have stronger strategies to get nutrients:

Bubble algae concentrates very low levels of nutrients that are outside the bubble, into to higher levels of nutrients inside the bubble. Even if nutrients measure "zero" outside the bubble, the bubble will have some nutrients stored inside it, and will take an abnormally long time to deplete these internal nutrients. But the bubble will eventually go away, if nutrients are kept low enough in the outside water.

Bryopsis, which uses "roots" to extract nutrients deep in rock. Even when nutrients in water measure "zero", bryopsis can survive from nutrients in the rock. So only after depleting the nutrients in the water for a long time, do you then deplete enough nutrients in the rocks, to kill bryopsis. But bryopsis too will go eventually, if nutrients are kept low enough in the water for long enough. If there is phosphate coming out of the rock, the situation can be really confusing because both the bryopsis and GHA can appear to be increasing, even though you have been testing "zero" nutrients for weeks!

And lastly, there is cyano, which does not care about any of this; cyano can "feed" on food particles, so your clean up crew should be increased to consume and stir up all the food particles on the substrate; water flow along the substrate can be increased too, to help with this. This will also stir up the food particles for the corals to eat!

Related:
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?3095-Periphyton-Your-natural-filter-and-food-producer
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?2970-Phosphate-flow-out-of-rocks
 

TOP 10 Trending Threads

WHAT DOES YOUR REEFING AREA LOOK LIKE BETWEEN MAINTENANCE SESSIONS?

  • Clean and tidy—everything gets put away

    Votes: 11 44.0%
  • Mostly cleaned up, but a few tools stay out

    Votes: 7 28.0%
  • Organized chaos—I know where everything is

    Votes: 4 16.0%
  • Enter at your own risk! Buckets, hoses, and towels are basically permanent fixtures

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • It depends on where I am in the maintenance cycle...

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • The tsunami hit. Hard.

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • A different take... (Post in the comments)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
Back
Top
Home
Post thread…
Market
What's new