Is doing nitrates in a tank with 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates with GHA a bad idea?

[ninjamyst]

I would just take that rock out and scrub the algae off. DO NOT put hydrogen peroxide on it as it, if it gets on the zoas, will cause them to release their palytoxins in full effect.

Partially false. Dipping zoas in hydrogen peroxide is very common way to get rid of algae. There are SOME palys that you don't want to dip or cut but most are fine. Based on the photo from OP, he doesn't have those

 

[Lavey29]

I have scrubbed that rock a couple times now. That is what the before and after pictures are. Before I scrubbed and after. Sometimes it is weak and can come off easily. Other times not even a grout brush will remove it. Which is my tool of choice.

I am also suspicious that me spot feeding reefroids those zoas on that rock also contributed to this mess.

Roids will spike your phosphate level.

 

[Reefahholic]

Hanna ulr phosphorus is said to be the most accurate .

nitrates … I prefer salifert

They’re all pretty accurate for a hobby grade tester IMO. The reason why the Phosphorus ULR is preferred over the rest is because most have and want low PO4. You need to be able to test as low as possible to see if you have PO4 in the system, but also to know if your getting close to depleted. The Phosphorus ULR is the meter that reads the lowest in parts per billion. The other 3 meters cannot get down that low. But obviously if you have super high PO4 then the meter will blink because the level will be out of its range. If that is the case a reefer may prefer to have two meters. One to check for low and another to see how high it actually is. I don’t think anybody would need the HI717. The HI713 would be a good high range meter. If you’re over 2.50 ppm. Well…yeah. As you can see the Phosphorus ULR is a fine choice for low range in PPB.


Hanna Phosphate High Range HI717
Range: 0.0 to 30.0 ppm

Hanna Phosphate Low Range HI713
Range: 0.00 to 2.50 ppm

Hanna Phosphate ULR HI774
Range: 0.00 to 0.90 ppm

Hanna Phosphorus ULR HI736
Range: 0 to 200 ppb

 

[ss30]

Yes it is a bad idea to dose No3 & Po4 into your tank given that you have GHA all you will do is make the GHA grow faster, the GHA will strip all of the No3 & Po4 from your tank which is why you get zero reading from your tests. If you remove as much GHA as you can and it grows back then you have enough No3 & Po4 in you tank to grow the GHA.

You need to eradicate the GHA with manual removal/CUC and then you can get your true No3 & Po4 reading and go from there and if you still get zero readings you will need test kits that will measure low levels.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have 0 nitrates and phosphates currently most likely due to GHA. As I battle the GHA, would it be a bad idea to dose nitrates during this battle?

To be honest, I think this is a complicated question without a perfect answer. I can see pros and cons both ways.

 

[paintman]

I have literally thrown away hundred of dollars on CUC over the past few weeks only to watch them totally ignore my GHA . Picushions, turbos, trochus, astrea. nothing but a waste of money in my opinion. Don't even get me started on foxface and algae blennies. This hobby is full of misinformation and conjecture.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have literally thrown away hundred of dollars on CUC over the past few weeks only to watch them totally ignore my GHA . Picushions, turbos, trochus, astrea. nothing but a waste of money in my opinion. Don't even get me started on foxface and algae blennies. This hobby is full of misinformation and conjecture.

What sort of foxface and what else does he eat?

My one spot foxface cleaned up all types of algae in my tank, including hard to eradicate caulerpa racemosa.

 

[DannoOMG]

I have literally thrown away hundred of dollars on CUC over the past few weeks only to watch them totally ignore my GHA . Picushions, turbos, trochus, astrea. nothing but a waste of money in my opinion. Don't even get me started on foxface and algae blennies. This hobby is full of misinformation and conjecture.

My limited understanding about CUC is they are good at preventing new growth not so much bulldozing over the long stuff. So you manually remove as much as you can to assist them.

We had a Gold Spotted Rabbit fish at work munch on our bubble algae. Emerald crabs kind of picked at it.

So as far my dilemma is concerned I have to keep pulling it out and scrubbing it until the corals start out competing the GHA for nitrates and the clean up don't need to cover so much space. I think.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

A blenny, a clown and a shrimp walk into a bar ....

Increasing your feeding, the normal advice, is only going to have a partial effect as you have a very limited bio-load for consuming it. Based on the size of your tank, your bio-load is good. The algae is growing on the rocks as that is the biggest source of phosphate in your tank at the moment. You mention trying to get a fuge going using chaeto, I would not bother, you have the best kind of fuge going already, corals.

Ok, what I would suggest is, get your testing buttoned down first. Get the Hanna Hanna Phosphorus ULR HI736, and either a Salifert Nitrate or the Hanna High Range Nitrate tester. The Hanna HR Nitrate tester is not too useful at low levels of nitrate, but you have LPS and zoas, so your optimum level of nitrate will eventually be 5-10 ppm, so it will be great in the end. Because increasing feeding with so few fish is hard, spot feed your corals. Get some LPS food and mushroom food and feed your corals directly. That will help to keep them healthy while the water column is nutrient poor. Finally keep doing manual removal of the GHA from the rock. You have the luxury of removing all the rock from your tank easily, so doing a manual cleaning will be the best and easiest way of clearing the GHA while you wait for coralline to take over where the GHA left off. When you are doing manual removal, for tough GHA, a little peroxide will help a lot. Just make sure to keep it off your corals and try to avoid getting it on coralline.

If the Hanna shows undetectable phosphate, you are going to want to make sure to bump that up a bit as dinos will eventually take advantage and then you will have a whole different, harder to treat, set of problems. Reef Roids will spike phosphate, so a judicious application of that can be helpful when you actually want to bump the phosphate.

Once you get the GHA out of the picture, dosing some nitrate, like say calcium nitrate will be welcomed by your LPS and especially your softies. At that point you will have first world problems where your zoas are running amuck and your GSP has turned into a menace!

 

[DannoOMG]

A blenny, a clown and a shrimp walk into a bar ....

Increasing your feeding, the normal advice, is only going to have a partial effect as you have a very limited bio-load for consuming it. Based on the size of your tank, your bio-load is good. The algae is growing on the rocks as that is the biggest source of phosphate in your tank at the moment. You mention trying to get a fuge going using chaeto, I would not bother, you have the best kind of fuge going already, corals.

Ok, what I would suggest is, get your testing buttoned down first. Get the Hanna Hanna Phosphorus ULR HI736, and either a Salifert Nitrate or the Hanna High Range Nitrate tester. The Hanna HR Nitrate tester is not too useful at low levels of nitrate, but you have LPS and zoas, so your optimum level of nitrate will eventually be 5-10 ppm, so it will be great in the end. Because increasing feeding with so few fish is hard, spot feed your corals. Get some LPS food and mushroom food and feed your corals directly. That will help to keep them healthy while the water column is nutrient poor. Finally keep doing manual removal of the GHA from the rock. You have the luxury of removing all the rock from your tank easily, so doing a manual cleaning will be the best and easiest way of clearing the GHA while you wait for coralline to take over where the GHA left off. When you are doing manual removal, for tough GHA, a little peroxide will help a lot. Just make sure to keep it off your corals and try to avoid getting it on coralline.

If the Hanna shows undetectable phosphate, you are going to want to make sure to bump that up a bit as dinos will eventually take advantage and then you will have a whole different, harder to treat, set of problems. Reef Roids will spike phosphate, so a judicious application of that can be helpful when you actually want to bump the phosphate.

Once you get the GHA out of the picture, dosing some nitrate, like say calcium nitrate will be welcomed by your LPS and especially your softies. At that point you will have first world problems where your zoas are running amuck and your GSP has turned into a menace!

My hannah UL phosphate checker should be here by Wed (I hope). I will bump thread with results once I get it.


I do spot feed my two ACANs on a regular basis. I feed my shrooms once in a while too. Torch coral must be getting food cause it pooped the other day. I dose AB+ twice a week. Phytoplankton goes in the tank 3 times a week.

I REALLY hope my Zoa's run amuck. I can't get my Illuminati Zoa's to grow and I have had them for a year. Still the same 3 polyps.

The two wild cards are the two Montiporas I have. I have a Forrest Fire Digitata and an Atomic Red Montipora. The Digitata had a rough start since I spot fed it reefroids and quickly learned that was killing it. It is making a small comeback. The Atomic Red is spreading on the frag rack slowly but surely.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I REALLY hope my Zoa's run amuck. I can't get my Illuminati Zoa's to grow and I have had them for a year. Still the same 3 polyps.

That's because you desire the Illuminatti's. The first rule of reefing is that is that it is always the drabbest, least favourite softie that overtakes and out competes all the expensive pretty corals!

 

[DannoOMG]

That's because you desire the Illuminatti's. The first rule of reefing is that is that it is always the drabbest, least favourite softie that overtakes and out competes all the expensive pretty corals!

Trust me. I've stopped trying to get them to grow. I spot fed with reefroids (which is why that plug always has GHA on it). Whatever happens to it happens. Survival of the fittest at this point.

 

[DannoOMG]

Update on what my Hannah checker said. One little "issue" I am not sure if it effects the test enough but a very tiny portion of the reagent missed the vial cause I thought it was empty. This look like enough that could throw my test?

Anyways... it said .04.

Assuming I didn't mess up the reagent portion... now that I do have detectable phosphates... I know .03 is the desirable amount? What now?

Salifert Nitrates are still showing at 0. Trying to increase my feedings but at the same time not over do it.

 

[Acros]

I believe your problem is dosing AB+. It will promote growth of everything in the tank, including GHA. I would stop that until GHA is under control.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Update on what my Hannah checker said. One little "issue" I am not sure if it effects the test enough but a very tiny portion of the reagent missed the vial cause I thought it was empty. This look like enough that could throw my test?

Anyways... it said .04.

Assuming I didn't mess up the reagent portion... now that I do have detectable phosphates... I know .03 is the desirable amount? What now?

Salifert Nitrates are still showing at 0. Trying to increase my feedings but at the same time not over do it.

Ok, your phosphate is good. You will want to keep an eye on the phosphate level as you try to raise nitrate. Often raising one, lowers the other.

I would keep up.with the manual removal of the GHA while you get your corals growing and ready to out compete the algae.

 

[DannoOMG]

Ok, your phosphate is good. You will want to keep an eye on the phosphate level as you try to raise nitrate. Often raising one, lowers the other.

I would keep up.with the manual removal of the GHA while you get your corals growing and ready to out compete the algae.

Roger that.

I believe your problem is dosing AB+. It will promote growth of everything in the tank, including GHA. I would stop that until GHA is under control.

Ya know. I thought about that. I will cut it off for a while and see what happens.

 

[Lavey29]

My limited understanding about CUC is they are good at preventing new growth not so much bulldozing over the long stuff. So you manually remove as much as you can to assist them.

We had a Gold Spotted Rabbit fish at work munch on our bubble algae. Emerald crabs kind of picked at it.

So as far my dilemma is concerned I have to keep pulling it out and scrubbing it until the corals start out competing the GHA for nitrates and the clean up don't need to cover so much space. I think.

This is partially correct. I had a GHA jungle going on. Trochus, crabs did nothing really except small new stuff. I added a couple tuxedo urchins and 2 turbos. They completely devoured everything in 3 weeks nothing left. I also raised my magnesium to 1500 to help kill GHA too but those guys did it all for sure.

 

[DannoOMG]

My phosphates jumped to .10.

Current parameters

pH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - .10
Calcium - 360 ( I was dragging my feed on dosing this at a higher amount)
Alkalinity - 10.5
Mg - 1360
Salinity - 1.026

This is what the tank looks like with just white lights on. I have no room to talk cause I have only been into the hobby a few years and my own personal tank is just over a year old, but the hobby is trying my patience. I spent 90 minutes today scrubbing the rocks. Even with a grout brush it is on the rock work or fake rock work cave thing I made that the GSP is sitting on the stuff loves growing on it. Myuhhhhhhh.

I have two local fish stores I am waiting to hear from about a sea hare. I'd like to try it. Right now I am putting the tank on a 3 day blackout. I know that might be a crap shoot in order to work but for now I am desperate.

That .10 is the Hannah test results by the way.

 

[hotdrop]

Before taking action but it borrow a Hanna nitrate and phosphate kit. Everything else is garbage in comparison

 

[DannoOMG]

Thought I'd share what I am trying to do. I admit I got sloppy for a while on testing and found out my Alkalinity took a dive. Using the Hannah checker I did find out my Phosphates are at 0. I wonder if that means all the GHA is consuming it really fast.

Algae has been looking bubbly and strange. I wonder if my 0 nitrates and phosphates are making me have Dinos etc. The bubbles aren't in the tank in the morning.

Anyways I am trying this thing from Santa Monica Filtration.

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BRS told me a scrubber wouldn't work on my tank but I wasn't a fan of that answer. So I a two weeks in trying this thing^^^

I only have a little bit of algae growth so far.

For those that don't know how it works it has an LED light on the inside and you put an airline in it where the bubbles flow from the bottom to the top. I figured it is worth a shot.

My tank parameters for those interested...

pH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0 (salifert. I will get the hannah one when I run out of salifert)
Phosphate - 0 (hannah)
Mg - 1320
Calcium - 440
Alkalinity - 7 (what the heck)
Salinity - 1.027 (what the heck I immediately took some tank water out and replaced with RO)