Ultra Low Nutrients & Algae

[ncjeepguy75]

I upgraded to a 125 gallon display with a sump that has 3 filter socks and a reef octo skimmer in June of this year. Everything looks amazing and is growing like crazy. My nutrient levels seems to be on the low side but I am ok with that as I am able to feed more, turn off the skimmer, and even dose nitrate as needed. This week I noticed a little bit of hair algae popping up on a few small areas of rock work, on a snail, and on an overflow.

I am not running a refugium at this point because obviously the nutrients are low and in my past experience if there are very little extra nutrients around the refugium does not function well.

I am not too terribly concerned about the little bit of algae but just do not want it to get out of hand.

Any others who have experienced this and if so how did you handle it?

My parameters are:
Temp: 77-78 F
pH: 7.6-7.7
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0-1.2
Phosphate: .02-.04
Salinity: 35.2 ppm
Alkalinity: 9.3-9.5
Calcium: 450
Magnesium: 1500

 

[lulubap]

I upgraded to a 100 gallon display with a sump that has 3 filter socks and a reef octo skimmer in June of this year. Everything looks amazing and is growing like crazy. My nutrient levels seems to be on the low side but I am ok with that as I am able to feed more, turn off the skimmer, and even dose nitrate as needed. This week I noticed a little bit of hair algae popping up on a few small areas of rock work, on a snail, and on an overflow.

I am not running a refugium at this point because obviously the nutrients are low and in my past experience if there are very little extra nutrients around the refugium does not function well.

I am not too terribly concerned about the little bit of algae but just do not want it to get out of hand.

Any others who have experienced this and if so how did you handle it?

My parameters are:
Temp: 77-78 F
pH: 7.6-7.7
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0-1.2
Phosphate: .02-.04
Salinity: 35.2 ppm
Alkalinity: 9.3-9.5
Calcium: 450
Magnesium: 1500

Your magnesium looks a little high. Perfect calcium, a sight for sore eyes for me <3. Magnesium should ideally be around 1350 to match your calcium (good rule of thumb—magnesium should be thrice your calcium). Also, the salinity you're measuring is ppt, not ppm.

Are you getting flow/circulation in the tank? Hopefully this is just an extra snack for your inverts. How many inverts do you currently have? I personally wouldn't be concerned, but I would keep an eye on the parameters I mentioned.

As an ending note, if it were my tank, I would feed more. It's always good to have above 5ppm, closer to 15 as a nice median between 5-25

 

[ncjeepguy75]

Your magnesium looks a little high. Perfect calcium, a sight for sore eyes for me <3. Magnesium should ideally be around 1350 to match your calcium (good rule of thumb—magnesium should be thrice your calcium). Also, the salinity you're measuring is ppt, not ppm.

Are you getting flow/circulation in the tank? Hopefully this is just an extra snack for your inverts. How many inverts do you currently have? I personally wouldn't be concerned, but I would keep an eye on the parameters I mentioned.

As an ending note, if it were my tank, I would feed more. It's always good to have above 5ppm, closer to 15 as a nice median between 5-25

@lulubap
Yes ppt for salinity! Sorry about that.

I have not added any magnesium so I guess that is just coming from the salt water maybe?

Is there a way to lower it other than water change?

800 gph pump for sump
2 circulation pumps, one on each end generating random flow across tank

As far as inverts and fish...
1 tuxedo urchin
1 pin cushion urchin
1 sand sifting star
20+ red leg hermits
40+ blue Leg hermits
2 scarlet hermits
5 turbo snails
10 Austria snails
5 trochus snails
1 Peppermint shrimp
1 orange spot goby
3 green chromis
2 springer damsels
1 pajama cardinal
1 banggai cardinal
1 clownfish
1 Royal gramma
1 hetrractis magnifica
Several rock flower anemones
Various sps, lps, soft corals

 

[KStatefan]

@lulubap
Yes ppt for salinity! Sorry about that.

I have not added any magnesium so I guess that is just coming from the salt water maybe?

What salt are you using?

 

[ncjeepguy75]

What salt are you using?

@KStatefan I get my premixed salt water from my local fish store and they use instant ocean sea salt (purple bucket).

 

[EricR]

Regular Instant Ocean doesn't seem like it mixes to that high of Ca or Mg so that's weird,,, unless I missed that you're dosing something.

Personally, I used IO for a while and just switched off of it but not because I had any issues -- just preferred to go with a lower alkalinity salt.

 

[Waters]

IMO algae (specifically GHA) requires very little nutrients to grow. I recently made a thread about green hair algae covered rock that sat in the dark in brute cans for months with very little nutrients and ended up looking better than when I put it in there. The key is to just have the CUC and fish from the beginning to keep it from growing long and out of control to the point where your livestock won't touch it (other than sea hares, which will eat pretty much anything). If you can manually pull those small sections out I would do that also.....the fish and inverts will be much more eager to munch on very short algae as opposed to when it gets long and stringy.

 

[131696]

Tank is 2 months old , let it be,add pods clean up crew

 

[mike werner]

Your magnesium looks a little high. Perfect calcium, a sight for sore eyes for me <3. Magnesium should ideally be around 1350 to match your calcium (good rule of thumb—magnesium should be thrice your calcium). Also, the salinity you're measuring is ppt, not ppm.

Are you getting flow/circulation in the tank? Hopefully this is just an extra snack for your inverts. How many inverts do you currently have? I personally wouldn't be concerned, but I would keep an eye on the parameters I mentioned.

As an ending note, if it were my tank, I would feed more. It's always good to have above 5ppm, closer to 15 as a nice median between 5-25

3x mag to cal.? stop giving advice!!!!