I'm amping up my filtration in my 340 gallon display and 75 gallon sump. For the past four years I've ran just my skimmer and Algae turf scrubber. I was having phosphate issues so I increased my lighting period to around 22 hours a day of my Turf scrubber. It's full of hair algae within 3 days to the point of the primary drain being clogged with hair algae. Which is great! I love that it's full in 3 days. It's doing it's job.
It wasn't enough though. phosphates kept rising. They were up to .66 ppm. I've got them down to .04 to .09 ppm. I was keeping them under .1 ppm with 33% water changes (roughly 130 gallons changed per month.) If I skipped a water change within a week the phosphates were back up to .1 ppm. So, I started vodka dosing. I'm up to 6.6 ml a day of dosing. And so far phosphates take 2-3 days to creep up by .01 ppm.
I want to go without water changes going forward and am thinking about dosing phytoplankton (specifically nanochloroses (sp?)) around 15 ml per day (I'd manually dose this once per day).
Three goals for the phyto dosing:
It wasn't enough though. phosphates kept rising. They were up to .66 ppm. I've got them down to .04 to .09 ppm. I was keeping them under .1 ppm with 33% water changes (roughly 130 gallons changed per month.) If I skipped a water change within a week the phosphates were back up to .1 ppm. So, I started vodka dosing. I'm up to 6.6 ml a day of dosing. And so far phosphates take 2-3 days to creep up by .01 ppm.
I want to go without water changes going forward and am thinking about dosing phytoplankton (specifically nanochloroses (sp?)) around 15 ml per day (I'd manually dose this once per day).
Three goals for the phyto dosing:
- Increase Pod presence for my copperband butterfly fish. He loves hunting and I'd like to amp up one of his primary food sources. (I've had him close to 2 years now, he eats frozen from my hand, but, he definitely hunts for other food.)
- Increase food supply for my corals (lots of SPS and LPS to feed)
- Increase pod supply that reduce cyano and other bacteria
- Aid in maintaining nitrates and phosphates.