Trust the tank or the tests?!!

LesPoissons

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Hey guys,
About 5 months ago I started using N0Pox to get my nitrates and phos under control. My levels dropped and I discontinued use 3 weeks ago. I haven’t done a water change since and my nitrates test at 1 (Nyos) and my phos is at 0.00 (Hanna). (Note- I was Not trying to get the levels that low!) BUT green hair algae or turf algae just appeared on my rock work. Should I restart my NoPox and trust that the levels are higher as evidence by growing algae and dismiss the test kit results? Or trust the the test kits are right and leave the NoP0x off and see what happens?
thanks!!!
 

Flippers4pups

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Have you had issues in the past with nuisance algae?

Stripping the water of nutrients isn't a good thing and is quite possible that is leading to the nuisance algae issues your having now.
 
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LesPoissons

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I had Gha years ago but it’s been gone for years. My point is I don’t think the test kits can be accurate if they are telling me the levels are bottomed out but yet I’m having a resurgence in algae after stopping the phos/nitrate reduction? Unless it’s dinos- I don’t think you get new algae growth from bottoming out the nutrients? Or can you? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. (Which again, totally depleting them was not my goal).
 

ReefPig

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Often when you bottom out nutrients to kills off various fauna, often this occupies the space and often fights away algae.

Seemingly very often people bottom out and get GHA, I will never understand why so many people use nopox / carbon dose and not use more natural methods. People have more problems with carbon dosing than anything else.
 

Pistondog

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Algae can use ammonia before it gets converted to nitrate.
Get some coralline on those rocks
 
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LesPoissons

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I’ve had the rocks in the tank for 5 years. If you know a trick to make coraline algae decide to grown on rocks (preferably instead of the glass!) I’d definitely be interested!
 

wonroc

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Ive had my tank up for 4 months and ive only tested salinity. And i will never put chems in my tank to solve algae/bac issues. Weekly maintenance. I am also a extreme advocate of sand vaccuming.
 
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LesPoissons

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Often when you bottom out nutrients to kills off various fauna, often this occupies the space and often fights away algae.

Seemingly very often people bottom out and get GHA, I will never understand why so many people use nopox / carbon dose and not use more natural methods. People have more problems with carbon dosing than anything else.
I guess a lot of us are still learning and don’t have room/money/time for algae scrubbers and other options etc so try the easiest way to attempt to maintain water quality. (I did try an algae scrubber and while it grew algae like mad, it had very little affect on testable nitrate/phos levels and was just one more thing to maintain.) doing more water changes on a 250 gal (approx 6 hours of work, after 12 hours of making rodi water and then mixing salt) wasn’t feasible for a long term solution. I was trying to find that “sweet spot” of maintaining good nitrate/phos levels and auto dosing the NoPox. After the levels dropped so low, I stopped using the NoPox for weeks- and I’m still at 0 for phos and 1 for nitrates. I dosed 94ml of Neo Nitrate and 30mls of Neo Phos and my levels are exactly the same. Idk. I’m trying but I can’t seem to get it right.
 

DivingTheWorld

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I think a lot of coral keepers get into the loop of carbon dosing to reduce nutrients (slang for Nitrate/Phosphate), then dosing nutrients to bring them back up. It's an endless cycle that easily can get out of wack and you'll end up with corals which aren't happy and algae you don't want.

IMO, with the exception of Bubble & Bryopsis which are the scourge from hell, algae growing in your tank is a good thing. If you have some algae growing, it means there are nutrients and that's what corals like. There are so many threads on what constitutes ideal nutrients. There are a few people that seem to keep nice coral tanks with the (IMO) short lived designer low nutrient plan. Then there are the majority of tank of the month tanks and coral vendors running high nutrients. Ask Shane @SBB Corals what he keeps his at. There is NO disputing he is killing it on colors!

I think when it comes down to it, my advice is to not chase figures. Find what works best for your tank and keep it simple. In my tank I just slowly added fish till I hit that nutrient level that my tank would maintain. For me 6/0.06 works. For some that may be low, but I don't think you'll find too many awesome coral tanks which run at much less. I use the KISS principle. I only add fish food which feed the fish and nothing else. I dose nothing but Alk/Cal and only run a bit of Rox carbon for water clarity. I may drop that too.

But to answer your question, both are likely right. The algae in your tank is sucking nutrients which is why they are registering low on your test kits, which I believe are likely correct.
 
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LesPoissons

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It wouldn’t Seem like I have enough Algae to soak up all the testable nitrate and phos in a 220. It covers maybe 3 inches on 2 rocks and just showed up this week.

In any event- I agree. I think chasing numbers in is what is causing me more problems where if I just kept it simple I wouldn’t be going around in circles.

I think I will dose phos and nitrate to get testable levels then stopping dosing and testing
Instead of another water change in two weeks which I’m sure is also contributing to bottom out the nutrients, I’m going to start dosing Red Sea ABC D trace elements.
I’ll maintain the current ca/alk on the dosing pump and I guess add in mag if I’m not doing water changes.
Then just basically leaving the tank alone and we’ll see what happens.
 

Bacon505

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My current system had never been tested for anything other than alk and cal once in a while when i notice temperament change in my corals. My sump is bare with just live rocks. So i trust my tank and never on a test kit
 
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LesPoissons

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I don’t know. I’ve been testing since the beginning because it seems like I’ve had constant issues since day 1- and whenever you post about an issue people always want to know what your parameters are. And you try to mediate problems judging by your parameters. There are very successful reefers keeping tanks from just doing the basics and the bare minimum to people who have all the technology imaginable dosing and testing and monitoring their tanks. I don’t think there is one “right way” to do it and there is a lot of conflicting information depending on who’s advice you take. Since this is my first tank and it’s huge- I’ve had a long slow learning curve with every issue being a BIG issue and trying to sift through the advice and fix problems. Constantly trying to meddle and adjust things does not seem to be improving my tank though, so I’m definitely willing to try doing less to see if I get more out of it :)
 

Pistondog

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I’ve had the rocks in the tank for 5 years. If you know a trick to make coraline algae decide to grown on rocks (preferably instead of the glass!) I’d definitely be interested!
Water has to be right, then some coralline
Will also grow on glass, but easily cleaned off.
 
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LesPoissons

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SBB Corals

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DivingTheWorld LesPoissons

Thanks for the nice words! I really appreciate your comments and we honestly don’t know how we get the colors but can only share what we have been doing to get the same results. I do think that high no3 between the 15-32 range and po4 around .06-.15 is the best for healthy vibrant corals and colors and some would say that this creates algae in the tanks. IMO if you can grow algae great then you can also grow corals. Having algae in the tank is a good thing and it means the tank is becoming established. The key to getting rid of Algae is having the right fish to eat it. I find that a nice stocked aquarium with tangs will eat all the algae and therefore it won’t show up on the rocks. I feed very strict so no food gets wasted. I use the American reef hpd food and hang it form a bag. This works great because the food goes right into the fish bellies and doesn’t get wasted and then trapped in between the rocks to then rot away. This keep the no3 and po4 down naturally to the point where I have to dose it up to keep the high levels I want. I try and keep things super simple and find the root of the problem. I don’t like nopox or anything to reduce the nutrient… there is really no need for that if you keep a clean system and dose up the no3 and po4 as needed. Hope this helps!

 
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