Trying to combat phosphate & nitrate issues

[Hallowhead]

Howdy,

I am struggling with my frag tank... my display tank (separate system) which is more mixed reef (fish & coral) balances itself better. So here goes. My frag tank is a 34 deep blue with a 15ish gallon sump. I run (2) kessil A160we tuna blue's. The tank started minimal cycled & than just snails for several months before my first QT fish made it through my rigorous plan. Upon adding the fish the uglyness hit & some algae broke out now that there was more nutrients in the water. This went away shortly after, clean white rocks still no green algae growth - I added corals. Corals looked GREAT always fully extended and polyp heads are wide open unlike my DT (another topic for another day). Boom it happened, a frag must have had turf algae on it and made through my hydrogen peroxide dips and scrubs it spread fast! This algae was combated by vibrant and manual removal. The vibrant brought red slime, and these two algaes ate my nitrates & phosphates and pegged them zero.. Through this my corals remained fully extended when the plugs were not covered in turf algae... however, NO GROWTH nothing is splitting (all zoa's). Over time I added a larger CUC; several turbos, throchus & assorted others. They helped clean frag plugs a LOT however, still turf algae bad... After 4 weeks of vibrant and no luck I manually removed every inch of turf algae and scrubbed down each rock in RO/DI water. 2 weeks later my tank looked incredibly clean and all seemed well.... Nitrates still registered zero & phosphates zero - now this week green algae appears to be growing back on the egg shells & red slime growing in it's long strings. I am not sure what's up, however, I think it has to do with nitrates being zero.. how can I combat this? A refugium? GFO? I fear that if I start feeding more, the algae will just grow more? Should I add more fish? I had 2 fish but my tailspot blenny jumped out of the tank Some zoanthid frags have been in here 6 months & have not multiplied ONCE however, there always fully extended.

I raised my light intensity back up to 45 percent to hopefully help zoanthid propagation yesterday... not sure if this will help - but I am at a loss of words why my zoanthids won't grow, they're just frozen in time.

Tank parameters:

Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
pH 8.2
Phosphate .09 ppm rn... which confuses me.
Alk 8.5 dkh
Calcium 430

 

[Daddy-o]

I am no expert, but I think you need to get some fish and a clean up crew in. I would think herbivores like a yellow tang, sea hare and some trocus snails and maybe some pods. You will not get zoa growth without nitrates.
Cheers! Mark

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

Add a macroalgea reactor. That works wonders for us.

 

[Triple.T]

It would help to raise nitrates a little as stated above. What's your lighting schedule look like and how often / what are you feeding?

 

[Hallowhead]

Lighting schedule is on at 9:30 ramp up to 45 intensity and Ramps down to off at 9:30 pm

I was feeding every day but started to feed every other to stop any additional nutrients from getting into water

 

[Hallowhead]

Add a macroalgea reactor. That works wonders for us.

Any reccomendations? I've heard good things

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

Any reccomendations? I've heard good things

I bought the Skimz from BRS

 

[Triple.T]

Lighting schedule is on at 9:30 ramp up to 45 intensity and Ramps down to off at 9:30 pm

I was feeding every day but started to feed every other to stop any additional nutrients from getting into water

Have you considered possibly that your corals are getting to much light? I went from 12 hours to 6 hours with the rest being whatever the living room lighting is. Since the transition, every coral looks great and I see new growth on all my frags in the 2 and a half week transition. It was my LFS who said corals can get " too much light " and recommended I change my schedule up as to not over stress new frags I put in my tank. I'm not saying this is the cure to your problem, but it's definitely something to consider. Everything from corals to fish, water etc have never looked better then here recently. Best of luck I hope you figure it out!

 

[Hallowhead]

What lights & what intensity to you peak at? I am being told that my lights are not strong enough for my corals to out compete the algae.

 

[TheGulag]

Have you considered dosing Nitrates directly into the tank to get closer to a better balance?

 

[Triple.T]

What lights & what intensity to you peak at? I am being told that my lights are not strong enough for my corals to out compete the algae.

So I was having that same algae you're having and my rocks seemed brown and this hairy sometimes black looking algae was starting to form.

I use an AI Prime 16HD, at first I wasn't on any signature series schedule and I set my tank to what I thought looked good for a 12 hour period at 100% intensity...oops!! My corals were not bleaching, but they weren't growing and the colors were nothing like when I bought them. I was over feeding my tank mind you with a plethora of varieties of food which had my nitrates around 40 which is high and I find the 15 range to do great for my tank personally!

I adjusted the David Saxby signature series schedule and shortened it to half the time. I run at 80% intensity now on lights and feed a much smaller quantity of different food daily and I've beat the algae problem, the corals are happy and growing and the water looks great. If you want more info on that lighting schedule check out AI's site under " signature series " .

 

[Hallowhead]

I think having my lights at 35% intensity thinking it would not let algae grow made it grow more... I need to bump up intensity to allow corals to eat nitrate not algae.