- Joined
- Oct 9, 2019
- Messages
- 291
- Reaction score
- 112
My tank:
36g (140l)
Clown fish and a jack in the box, 1 pompom crab, a few snails.
Lighting at 140PAR at peak time in the middle of the tank.
Have some acans, hammer coral etc and 1 unhappy monti (doesn't like algae).
I've been struggling with algae in my tank from the start. Undetectable numbers are bad, but for some reason I cannot keep them stable without growing lots of algae in the tank. First I used carbon dosing as a method to lower nitrates. Phosphates where always undetectable. But I learned that you need some phosphates in order for carbon to work so I started dosing PO4 so I had a measurable number and something for the Carbon to work. Result: BAD, Massive algae growth because they started to take up the PO4 so at the end dosing made no sense. Although it might be related to Trace elements dosage too. (I didn't do any water changes at this time because the goal was to not do them)
But I just want those algae gone so I did a few waterchanges when removing the algae, I've placed GFO together with an Algae scrubber/reactor as I believe these will grow all algae and not only specific types that use up 1 thing, removed all the algae which was A LOT and I'm battling them now daily for a week. The Algae scrubber did grow some algae in a short time but now it seems to have stopped. Algae in the tank are growing a bit but I keep fighting them so not sure what the growth is. And today I measured and I have 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates again.
So whats next? I could try to keep them at 0 for some time to kill algae (and hopefully not the corals) or start attempts to slowly let them go up? I'm not going to dose Carbon again at this time because it requires both nitrates and some phosphates and I believe that if I dose it now, it will only drop PH.
I could remove the GFO. But that might spike algae growth. I could put the algae scrubber at a minimum (3-4 h of light a day). Want to enable my auto feeder again just to make sure I have a very stable input of food, although half of the minimal dose by a DIY mod.
Or I could start dosing PO4 and NO3 but I personally think this would only allow more algae to grow. (Did it with PO4 and seemed to be a big fail)
36g (140l)
Clown fish and a jack in the box, 1 pompom crab, a few snails.
Lighting at 140PAR at peak time in the middle of the tank.
Have some acans, hammer coral etc and 1 unhappy monti (doesn't like algae).
I've been struggling with algae in my tank from the start. Undetectable numbers are bad, but for some reason I cannot keep them stable without growing lots of algae in the tank. First I used carbon dosing as a method to lower nitrates. Phosphates where always undetectable. But I learned that you need some phosphates in order for carbon to work so I started dosing PO4 so I had a measurable number and something for the Carbon to work. Result: BAD, Massive algae growth because they started to take up the PO4 so at the end dosing made no sense. Although it might be related to Trace elements dosage too. (I didn't do any water changes at this time because the goal was to not do them)
But I just want those algae gone so I did a few waterchanges when removing the algae, I've placed GFO together with an Algae scrubber/reactor as I believe these will grow all algae and not only specific types that use up 1 thing, removed all the algae which was A LOT and I'm battling them now daily for a week. The Algae scrubber did grow some algae in a short time but now it seems to have stopped. Algae in the tank are growing a bit but I keep fighting them so not sure what the growth is. And today I measured and I have 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates again.
So whats next? I could try to keep them at 0 for some time to kill algae (and hopefully not the corals) or start attempts to slowly let them go up? I'm not going to dose Carbon again at this time because it requires both nitrates and some phosphates and I believe that if I dose it now, it will only drop PH.
I could remove the GFO. But that might spike algae growth. I could put the algae scrubber at a minimum (3-4 h of light a day). Want to enable my auto feeder again just to make sure I have a very stable input of food, although half of the minimal dose by a DIY mod.
Or I could start dosing PO4 and NO3 but I personally think this would only allow more algae to grow. (Did it with PO4 and seemed to be a big fail)