Hey everybody! I've had fish in my first tank (32gal biocube) for about 2 months now, and ran it without fish for 6ish weeks while it cycled before that. I've had a ton of algae of different types (which I know is totally normal) but I guess I'm looking for some validation that things are on the right track.
My biggest concern is currently that my PO4 and NO3 are really low. I've been doing a 5gallon WC once per week, but skipped last week due to low nutrients. Did a WC yesterday and nutrients are still bottomed out. Testing with Hanna, my last couple of weeks looked like this:
Dec 20: PO4: 0.0 / NO3: 2.3
Dec 12: PO4: 0.0 / NO3: 2.7
Dec 6: PO4: 0.2 / NO3: 0.0
Nov 20: PO4: 0.0 / NO3: 9.
PH is consistently around 8 and NH3 is always 0. Haven't tested for anything else. Any ideas to increase PO4 or NO3 without dosing? Just overfeeding? Is it dangerous to have nutrient levels this low?
My water also seems cloudy with white specs floating. It's been like that for weeks and hasn't improved. I'm running filter floss and was running chemipure blue and purigen, but removed these a few weeks ago to see if I could raise PO4/NO3. Should I add carbon again?
I also have this bright green algae that none of my snails will eat. What kind of algae is this and is there anything that will eat it? I think the brown is diatoms and there's some purple patches of what I assume is cyano in there. I'm going to be getting more snails soon since mine seem to enjoy spending all of their time on the glass instead of the rock.
Anyway, here's some photos. If you have any thoughts or advice or validation I'd love to hear it.
My biggest concern is currently that my PO4 and NO3 are really low. I've been doing a 5gallon WC once per week, but skipped last week due to low nutrients. Did a WC yesterday and nutrients are still bottomed out. Testing with Hanna, my last couple of weeks looked like this:
Dec 20: PO4: 0.0 / NO3: 2.3
Dec 12: PO4: 0.0 / NO3: 2.7
Dec 6: PO4: 0.2 / NO3: 0.0
Nov 20: PO4: 0.0 / NO3: 9.
PH is consistently around 8 and NH3 is always 0. Haven't tested for anything else. Any ideas to increase PO4 or NO3 without dosing? Just overfeeding? Is it dangerous to have nutrient levels this low?
My water also seems cloudy with white specs floating. It's been like that for weeks and hasn't improved. I'm running filter floss and was running chemipure blue and purigen, but removed these a few weeks ago to see if I could raise PO4/NO3. Should I add carbon again?
I also have this bright green algae that none of my snails will eat. What kind of algae is this and is there anything that will eat it? I think the brown is diatoms and there's some purple patches of what I assume is cyano in there. I'm going to be getting more snails soon since mine seem to enjoy spending all of their time on the glass instead of the rock.
Anyway, here's some photos. If you have any thoughts or advice or validation I'd love to hear it.