Nitrates and phosphates read 0 but I think it might be cyano and GHA eating it up too fast. I have some theories but want some more input

[Placenta89]

The 0s point to some form of dino. Is it a little better at night and gets worse as the day progresses? Get a cheap microscope. It'll help. Best fix is nutrient balance. Patience.

Yeah I'm gonna have to start dosing tonight. Gonna do some math and find a good ration for both and test daily to see what I need to dose. Really didn't think it was Dinos but thanks so much for your input

 

[Placenta89]

Also... I've noticed that after I got Alkalinity up and consistent it helped reduce some of the algae I was getting (all kinds).

That's good. I've been consistently getting a 9-10 dkh for the past 5 months and a steady calcium and magnesium levels as well in line with it. I'm gonna grab a coffee filter and test but in the mean time I'm gonna take out all my media that removes phosphate and nitrate and stop weekly water changes.

 

[Placenta89]

Post a picture, it will help. You may have the dreaded dinos.

Phosphates and nitrates at zero is no good. If you do have cyno, I'd advise against using chemi-clean. Chemi-clean does work, but I feel like in the process it will harm your healthy tank biome. Dosing chemi-clean often kills the cyno and then opens the door for dinos, which imho is way harder to deal with.


Get those nutrients up!

So the brown stuff will get fuzzier (I had just cleaned everything the day before) and it's coming back hard. I thought it was Diatoms but every diatom bloom I've had, has been very easy to baste off and remove. This stuff is quite difficult to scrub and the back of the tank will get caked in it. That's why I am not sure it's dinos. But something is eating up all the nitrate and phosphate. I've dosed last night. Nitrates are up to 10 now and phosphate was 0.12 but I just got home and it's back to 0. Just dosed phosphate again.

 

[ScottB]

Coffee filter test yet?

 

[fdevans]

I tried my coffee filter test and the water came out quite clear and nothing combined back into a single glob. In others photos I still saw a green tint to the water after the filter. I'll try again after another cleaning this weekend and maybe use a paper towel instead of coffee filter. Hopefully test 2 confirms it's just something I can feed my future Tomini Tang.

 

[Placenta89]

I tried my coffee filter test and the water came out quite clear and nothing combined back into a single glob. In others photos I still saw a green tint to the water after the filter. I'll try again after another cleaning this weekend and maybe use a paper towel instead of coffee filter. Hopefully test 2 confirms it's just something I can feed my future Tomini Tang.

Good luck, I'm gonna do the test tonight. Hopefully it's not dinos for you. Let me know if the paper towel works better for you. Thanks

 

[Placenta89]

Coffee filter test yet?

Did the test, not dinos. I've been dosing phosphorus and nitrogen though . Nitrogen seems to be a steady 10ppm the past 3 days where the phosphate can go from a 0.12 - 0 within a day. Nitrogen doesn't seem to get affected. But I did notice the past 3 days after dosing, that chunks of the brown film on the tank have disappeared. Not sure if it had anything to do with that or my conch and sand sifting stars just cruised around the area a lot over night. But I'll take it.

 

[ScottB]

Did the test, not dinos. I've been dosing phosphorus and nitrogen though . Nitrogen seems to be a steady 10ppm the past 3 days where the phosphate can go from a 0.12 - 0 within a day. Nitrogen doesn't seem to get affected. But I did notice the past 3 days after dosing, that chunks of the brown film on the tank have disappeared. Not sure if it had anything to do with that or my conch and sand sifting stars just cruised around the area a lot over night. But I'll take it.

Avoiding dinos is a good thing; glad you crossed that off the list. Those pics just look like normal new tank uglies to me.

When did you start the tank?
Dead or live rock start?

The phosphates are binding to your rock & sand. They will continue to do this until the substrate has some level of saturation and you will reach a happy spot and be able to stop dosing.

 

[Placenta89]

Avoiding dinos is a good thing; glad you crossed that off the list. Those pics just look like normal new tank uglies to me.

When did you start the tank?
Dead or live rock start?

The phosphates are binding to your rock & sand. They will continue to do this until the substrate has some level of saturation and you will reach a happy spot and be able to stop dosing.

I'm going on 8 or 9 months. I had some really bad ugly stages, Diatoms like crazy but they faded away. I'm using all live rock and live sand. I let it cycle for about 3 months adding the beneficial bacteria until I had stable ammonia and nitrite and nitrate for a Month and a bit. I'm going on 8 months I think of actually having live stock in. I have a ton of those clearish white tube sponges in my read chambers as well as a massive explosion of those spioribid worms. I just thought this algae was wierd and tough and hard to scrape off. Haven't been able to identify it yet but I was thinking that as well. It's just getting stuck in the rocks. Hopefully it doesn't leech out a huge amount later on. No coral has faded in color or stopped growing either so I thought it was wierd that I keep getting readings of 0

 

[ScottB]

I'm going on 8 or 9 months. I had some really bad ugly stages, Diatoms like crazy but they faded away. I'm using all live rock and live sand. I let it cycle for about 3 months adding the beneficial bacteria until I had stable ammonia and nitrite and nitrate for a Month and a bit. I'm going on 8 months I think of actually having live stock in. I have a ton of those clearish white tube sponges in my read chambers as well as a massive explosion of those spioribid worms. I just thought this algae was wierd and tough and hard to scrape off. Haven't been able to identify it yet but I was thinking that as well. It's just getting stuck in the rocks. Hopefully it doesn't leech out a huge amount later on. No coral has faded in color or stopped growing either so I thought it was wierd that I keep getting readings of 0

OK great. I think things should start calming down for your biome about now.

Sounds like you are getting some kind of brown & green wire algae? Try to get some good, white light, close up pics. Then post to the nuisance algae thread and see if someone can recommend a suitable herbivore for it.

 

[Placenta89]

OK great. I think things should start calming down for your biome about now.

Sounds like you are getting some kind of brown & green wire algae? Try to get some good, white light, close up pics. Then post to the nuisance algae thread and see if someone can recommend a suitable herbivore for it.

Thanks I'll do that now. I'll just add them here as well in case you know

 

[Ancient Mariner]

As a minimalist, my approach would be to add nothing…no nitrate, no phosphate, no additives, no chaeto. I would vacuum weekly with water change weekly to biweekly and wait it out weeks or even months. When your tank turns 1 year old, then throw additives if you want.

 

[ScottB]

Thanks I'll do that now. I'll just add them here as well in case you know

The algae on that zoa frag is a type of bubble algae. Pull it from the tank and get after it with some tweezers.

 

[Placenta89]

The algae on that zoa frag is a type of bubble algae. Pull it from the tank and get after it with some tweezers.

dang, it came with it from the store. Thought it was a Wierd hair algae. That's gonna be interesting to get off without hurting the zoanthid.

The algae on that zoa frag is a type of bubble algae. Pull it from the tank and get after it with some tweezers.

Thanks, I just Removed as much as I could and hopefully, the roots I didn't get will die off from no light when the polyps cover over it. My emerald crab is a bum and doesn't touch any of my bubble algae.

 

[Lavey29]

As a minimalist, my approach would be to add nothing…no nitrate, no phosphate, no additives, no chaeto. I would vacuum weekly with water change weekly to biweekly and wait it out weeks or even months. When your tank turns 1 year old, then throw additives if you want.

While I appreciate this approach, basically you are saying just sit back and let mother nature do her thing? I have kind of adopted this method to but I still use a small bag of carbon in the sump and a chaeto fuge I just set up.

How do you compensate for imbalances? Other then water change with siphon.

 

[Placenta89]

As a minimalist, my approach would be to add nothing…no nitrate, no phosphate, no additives, no chaeto. I would vacuum weekly with water change weekly to biweekly and wait it out weeks or even months. When your tank turns 1 year old, then throw additives if you want

Hmm, if I constantly read 0 though wouldn't that be encouraging dinos to grow?