New Tank - Lighting and Phosphates

[garbermatt]

So I've only had my tank up for about five weeks, and kept the lights dim for the first month and have been able to keep nitrates and phosphates relatively low (No3 around 10ppm and Phosphate around 0.1ppm) but in the last week I've started to ramp up the lights a bit and my phosphates have started to shoot up. As a result I've got diatom algae growing on my rocks pretty much only on the areas that get direct light exposure (top only). I've been using Brightwell Phosphate-e to bring it down from .2-.3ppm to .1ppm but just wondering am I turning on the lights too early or is this just some inevitable leeching from my rocks? Also thinking its odd that my nitrates are going down (about 5ppm now) at the same time the phosphate is increasing but again guessing that could be a leeching thing; just never connected phosphates to lighting increases (especially without associated nitrate increase). Assuming this is just a part of starting a tank, and thinking I can just keep phosphate in check until things adjust but curious for everyone's thoughts. Here's my stats:

240Gallon (72 x 24 x 32 -- Not much algae on the sand 32" down) - 8 fish and some inverts
3 Philips CoralCare G2s (went from about 10% to 30% intensity for 4h/day, now back to 20%)
180lb MarcoRock
Aquamaxx DCQ3 Skimmer
2 Vortech MP40s

 

[Quietman]

This early in tank startup really hard to determine cause and effect. Don't think turning lights on has a whole lot to do with increase phosphates. Think you're approaching it right...just do minimal mgmt to keep it close to parameters as tank goes through starting phases. Once things settle down and you start adding fish/corals (assuming you're minimal there too) you'll hit a balance and can start implementing longer term strategies.

 

[garbermatt]

This early in tank startup really hard to determine cause and effect. Don't think turning lights on has a whole lot to do with increase phosphates. Think you're approaching it right...just do minimal mgmt to keep it close to parameters as tank goes through starting phases. Once things settle down and you start adding fish/corals (assuming you're minimal there too) you'll hit a balance and can start implementing longer term strategies.

Thanks, think I’ll probably wait until things level off before turning the lights up a bit more. And started adding a bit of iron to my sump as my first clump of chaeto seems to be struggling a bit. But overall feeling pretty good for a tank this new.