Nitrate

[Doctorgori]

Do you really believe white light causes algae? Have you ever looked at a spectrograph of chlorophyll A and C and such? It is blue/violet and red that promote better growth. Some use green and red, but it’s not anywhere near as important.

heck NO….LOL, that was sarcasm…I’ve been on a mini campaign against that very info…
I started on MH with no “white channel” to turn off and battle algae….

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Here’s some logic. 50-100:1 ratio top pic.

Bottom pic…low P high N.

Which tank is cleaner?

I hypothesize that bears attract people from France.

I had a family of bears in my yard 2 weeks ago. A friend from France arrived yesterday.

It must be true…

 

[Seansea]

Let's focus on your algae scrubber. If your getting algae with a scrubber something is out of whack. What kind of scrubber do you have? And when did you add it? How long is your light cycle? I have had an algae scrubber on my tank since day 1 and after.2 years with 21 fish in a 75 and heavy feeding I have no algae. I do have 3 tangs and a blenny that munch alot as well. We'll 2 algae munching tangs. I rarely see the hippo tang scrape rock or glass.

 

[Spare time]

heck NO….LOL, that was sarcasm…I’ve been on a mini campaign against that very info…
I started on MH with no “white channel” to turn off and battle algae….

lol I can't read sarcasm on the Internet anymore

 

[library 112]

It is certainly true that a reef tank is a complex system with many organisms competing for many different potentially limiting factors in algae growth.

It’s hard to interpret your situation since you mention ratios but never mention a measure of anything except phosphate. Your post as written doesn’t mean that ratios mean anything, just that the absolute level of phosphate was important in your situation.

I did mention and here’s the paste
Phosphate .028
Nitrate 34.7

 

[library 112]

Let's focus on your algae scrubber. If you’re getting algae with a scrubber something is out of whack. What kind of scrubber do you have? And when did you add it? How long is your light cycle? I have had an algae scrubber on my tank since day 1 and after.2 years with 21 fish in a 75 and heavy feeding I have no algae. I do have 3 tangs and a blenny that munch alot as well. We'll 2 algae munching tangs. I rarely see the hippo tang scrape rock or glass.

Scrubber is new and just getting seeded. I had a make shift refugium but was not doing well. So switched to a scrubber. Light cycle is 10 hours but only at 45% of power and very low on whites and reds

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I did mention and here’s the paste
Phosphate .028
Nitrate 34.7

I was responding to Reefaholic when I said the sentence you quoted. If you look at the quote in any post, you can see who they are directing the response to.

 

[CHSUB]

Yeah that was my thought but many things do both and did not want to bottom phos out

Your problem starts with a basic miss understanding of a reef tank, cause by an over reliance of information based on hobby observation. No sarcasm or trolling is intended. In a reef tank with fed fish it is nearly impossible to “bottom out nutrients”, maybe less that 1% of systems imo would ever suffer from to little N and P. This is a “new” problem that seems to be vogue for new hobbyists to give advice. The simple solution to algae has not changed in decades. Clean your tank, keep inorganic nutrients low as possible, manually remove all algae, large CUC, and WC.

 

[Fish Fan]

Here's Lou Ekus also from Tropic Marin, at just about one minute into this video he mentions that the Redfield ratio is not really helpful for reef tanks:



I'm not an expert, but you have some very, very experienced reefers (and at least one "real-deal" professional chemist) giving you advice about this ratio in this thread. Just sayin' ;-)

I'm also with those that feel that you might be overfeeding just a little. Three cubes of frozen even in a 115 seems like a lot of food to me.

If I'm reading your post correctly, it looks like you have a very well equipped tank. You have a skimmer, you have both socks and floss that you change regularly. You run a UV sterilizer (do you have it tuned for algae?). You really shouldn't be struggling to keep your nutrients or algae growth down. I would try to cut back on the feeding a little, and see if that helps.

Best of luck!

 

[Reefahholic]

It’s hard to interpret your situation since you mention ratios but never mention a measure of anything except phosphate.

I mentioned 50-100:1 (personal preference).

50:1 0.1 | 5 (lowest)

100:1 0.1 | 10 (highest)

The corals look better and are more resilient at 100:1, and the system stays cleaner for me at 100:1, but 50:1 does pretty well.

Both ratios may be excess nitrate for the corals, but I like how the corals look and how the tank stays cleaner. It’s hard to say how much nitrate is really needed. My guess is less than what I’m targeting, but it’s working well so I won’t change it until I have a good reason to. I hate dirty rocks and sand.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Im not understanding how a discussion on the “censored word” ratio will help the OP resolving his current issue with nitrates, I believe there is places on the forum to do that. (Or used to)
Meanwhile, wouldn’t it be more productive and friendly to just try and go back to the focus of the thread? that is the rise in nitrates. Were the OP may require some assistance and option into find solution to lower nitrate without affecting his phosphate as I believe it’s within acceptable range.

 

[Reefahholic]

Im not understanding how a discussion on the “censored word” ratio will help the OP resolving his current issue with nitrates, I believe there is places on the forum to do that. (Or used to)
Meanwhile, wouldn’t it be more productive and friendly to just try and go back to the focus of the thread? that is the rise in nitrates. Were the OP may require some assistance and option into find solution to lower nitrate without affecting his phosphate as I believe it’s within acceptable range.

His whole problem is low phosphate. If he dose’s it up, that will help the nitrate come down much easier, but also give everything in the system the much needed phosphate. At this point the algae is likely outcompeting everything in the system.

 

[Reefahholic]

find solution to lower nitrate without affecting his phosphate as I believe it’s within acceptable range.

His PO4 was like .02 which is within the margin of error on both Hanna ULR’s. +/- 5%. It would be safer if he was at .06 so that he knows there’s some phosphate in the system.

 

[Reefahholic]

heck NO….LOL, that was sarcasm…I’ve been on a mini campaign against that very info…
I started on MH with no “white channel” to turn off and battle algae….

@Spare time so you guys think that blue light grows corals faster.?

 

[sixty_reefer]

His whole problem is low phosphate. If he dose’s it up, that will help the nitrate come down much easier, but also give everything in the system the much needed phosphate. At this point the algae is likely outcompeting everything in the system.

I believe he stated at the opening of the thread that he has a 0.028 phosphate. This number to me is within acceptable range, if we were to focus on his problem and not on the discussion of the “censored word” my next question would be if he has his nitrates and phosphate for the last month.
If they have been consistent and balanced my recommendation is to keep the balance and avoid messing up that to chase a number. Algae is something that happens to all reefs and he may just need to look at adding more herbivores to keep the algae in check.
In the other hand if the tank is not balanced and nitrate and phosphate is all over then we could look at recommendations to improve his biological and mechanical filter.
In my opinion this is how the conversation should take direction if someone is asking for help, dictating personal views doesn’t really help anyone in a help thread.

 

[sixty_reefer]

His PO4 was like .02 which is within the margin of error on both Hanna ULR’s. +/- 5%. It would be safer if he was at .06 so that he knows there’s some phosphate in the system.

I agree it could also indicate that his bacteria doesn’t have enough dissolved organic carbon available for denitrification, although if we ask the right question, we as a team should be able to identify were the OP could make adjustments if required. We still don’t know if the tank is balanced and I find important to know that before asking someone to do Changes that could be detrimental. Imo
With a hint that the OP wants to lower only Nitrate I’ve recommended a anaerobic denitrification block that has a carbon slide that will only reduce nitrates and it shouldn’t affect phosphate a few pages back, I’m very against reducing or increasing feeding to our fish to accomplish anything to do with balancing nutrients as I find it borderline with animal cruelty, they our pets and require a balanced diet to stay healthy, specially if we can easily achieve balance with simple methods available to all.

 

[Doctorgori]

@Spare time so you guys think that blue light grows corals faster.?

Definitely NO, matter of fact white light absolutely aids algae growth. Going one step further, cutting down white light will without a doubt aid you in your algae fight. The logic being it’s a temporary aid.

…but this is misplaced logic and effort IMO…It’s like covering your whole lawn with a tarp to kill weeds..

My problem with this is why jack with lighting when the issue is something else? Also the reality is the sun is 5000K or white light. I think we have been lighting our tanks blue for so long we forget the actual environment our stock is from isn’t 20K blue with a pH of 8.3, alk @ 10.3 and a constant temperature of 78F

… not to sound like a @Paul B protege but his theory that matching the animals original environment is the best approach is spot on IMO

this is one of those parroted things that work but I strongly suspect it skews reality in that you are chasing a new problem when you adjust to a out of tolerance parameter. …

Seems to me a better strategy is to light your tanks TO 5000K then attack the algae…

Algae seems to grow fine under blue light anyway.

edited numerous times LOL

 

[wccbr1]

I hypothesize that bears attract people from France.

I had a family of bears in my yard 2 weeks ago. A friend from France arrived yesterday.

It must be true…

That just cracked me up.

 

[SantaMonica Verified Sponsor]

Light cycle is 10 hours but only at 45% of power and very low on whites and reds

Needs 18 hours minimum. Low power yes, but white is not really helping, its just for viewing.

 

[GARRIGA]

I'm starting to believe it's all about consumers because one could have low nitrates due to excess GHA. Reefs become infested with GHA when herbivores are depleted. Best first focus on ample CUC before adding anything else. Can always feed them if not enough algae present. Having said that, doesn't hurt to have Fuge/ATS competing for those nutrients. All a balance.