Using NP-Bacto-Balance

[Spdjnky]

A little history of my aquarium. It is an 80 gallon shallow reef with the overflow on the end peninsula style. One month ago I removed the sand and added more rocks to the existing aquascape during the process I used bacteria and kept everything soaking when I wasn't rebuilding them on my bench right now everything is running fine but I have been having a nutrient problem have been through the gauntlet on algae. Right now I am dosing phosphates and nitrates or should I say was with the nitrates I am not dosing them anymore because I don't need to as far as the phosphate goes that was the big problem keeping it it always went to zero I have had to dose it but at the same time I can't keep things balanced out.
I have just started using it yesterday and I went by the year to two year aquarium that told me to use .5ml per 25 gal. My system being 100 gallons I used 2 milliliters before using my phosphate was .05 ppm and nitrate was 11 ppm.
I tested this morning and came up with .04 ppm PO4 and 18 NO3
Should I cut the dose in half to 1 milliliter I'm really not sure where to go here any help would be appreciated.

 

[Spdjnky]

some pictures I just took
As you can see I have had the brown hair algae now I see it going back to some green so not sure where that puts me but I must be making some kind of progress in this nutrient battle I also forgot to mention in the first post that I am dosing doctor Tims eco-balance and waste away

 

[Benpastw]

Do you run an UV Sterilizer? If not that would help a lot, I won’t have a tank without one now, really like the Pentair UV ones, just purchased a 50w to put on a 300 gal, imo well worth the money and I think would help with your algae issues. Also if you have room in the sump get a bio block or some bio balls and add them.
originally from Buffalo, go bills!

 

[Spdjnky]

some pic I just took

 

[Spdjnky]

Do you run an UV Sterilizer? If not that would help a lot, I won’t have a tank without one now, really like the Pentair UV ones, just purchased a 50w to put on a 300 gal, imo well worth the money and I think would help with your algae issues. Also if you have room in the sump get a bio block or some bio balls and add them.
originally from Buffalo, go bills!

I am running the Triton Method

 

[Benpastw]

Also blow off the cyano and try and syphon it out when you do water changes, after taking out the sand your tank is trying to rebalance, it’ll eventually clear up

 

[Spdjnky]

Thanks for your input I really appreciate it but at the same time I am looking for answers to my main question which is using NP-Bacto-Balance I just started using it yesterday and I went by the year to two year aquarium that told me to use .5ml per 25 gal. My system being 100 gallons I used 2 milliliters before using my phosphate was .05 ppm and nitrate was 11ppm.
I tested this morning and came up with .04 ppm PO4 and 18 NO3
Should I cut the dose in half to 1 milliliter I'm really not sure where to go here any help would be appreciated.

 

[Cflow]

Are you running full triton, as in no water changes with giant refugium? Additional carbon dosing may be a bit aggressive IMO. Tropic Marin has the NP plus as well. It’d be like chasing nutrients but offers a bump to keep from bottoming out. I’d back off carbon dosing.

 

[Spdjnky]

I'm running the core 7 and was surprised to see the jump in nitrates that I did but they have been going up so maybe it shouldn't surprise me so you think I should back off half the amount on the carbon dosing? I showed a picture of my sump with my refrugium

 

[Cflow]

I’d worry that a carbon source would fuel cyano. I wouldn’t dose aminos either. Something is out of balance. With the fuge I’d probably just do a big wc syphoning as much cyano as possible and let the fuge handle it. Maybe even blast the cyano into the water column and dose liquid calcium carbonate which will act like a flocculant so the skimmer will remove it.

 

[Spdjnky]

Really not sure where to go there not really sure if I understand you too much but I did dose 1ml of NP-Bacto-Balance and will water test again later and in the morning most likely so I have been testing a lot trying to let the system stable out. As far as I know I don't see any the last picture that I have posted is what the aquarium looks like now I believe it's brown hair algae and now I see some spots of green algae with some bubbles that I had before it went brown hair algae so it seems to be going back and forth. As I said before I have been using doctor Tim's waste away and eco-balance. I dosed wastaway this morning.
My Refugium is pretty full right now I was thinking I should pull a bunch out of it I'm really not sure how to balance that.

 

[Spdjnky]

Update
after cutting my dose in half to 1 ml my PO4 is .02 ppm and NO3 came down to 14 ppm

 

[Pod_01]

In general TM carbon dosing is based on phosphates not NO3. You have low level of phosphate and should be switching to +NP. Here is a chart:

Also I suspect your refurgium might be too big and requires trimming. If you don’t trim some of the growth will decay and release NO3. Also by reducing it your PO4 will come up to safer value.
I hope this helps.

 

[Spdjnky]

In general TM carbon dosing is based on phosphates not NO3. You have low level of phosphate and should be switching to +NP. Here is a chart:

Also I suspect your refurgium might be too big and requires trimming. If you don’t trim some of the growth will decay and release NO3. Also by reducing it your PO4 will I'm where am I at what the **** where am I come up to safer value.
I hope this helps.

I started using it after talking to Brad at BRS my phosphate is the one that is always running low I am dosing it to keep it in the .03 to .1 range. I realize that I did say after I dosed it the first time my nitrate went from 11 ppm to 18 ppm I had really not had too much trouble with the nitrates they had been creeping up a little bit I do believe that maybe the reason being is my feeding and my refugium as you have just mentioned.
But like I said my main problem has been phosphates if I don't dose them there will be 0

 

[Pod_01]

I believe you should use plus NP and hopefully that will bring up your PO4. Here is a post with similar theme and interesting answer was provided by the creator of +NP and NP Bacto Balance

Carbon dosing, undetectable nutrients, and green hair algae

I’ve watched Lou present the benefits of carbon dosing for coral and I’m curious if it’d be a good or bad idea to carbon dose with my scenario. I currently have a 0.0 phosphate (Hanna ULR phosphate) and a 0.5 nitrate (Nyos). My system has a Refugium which grows quite a bit of Chaeto, but...

www.reef2reef.com

I hope the link works.
I still suspect you need to trim your refurgium, it likely is soaking up the PO4. Full disclosure I don’t have fuge but the idea is for them to take up nutrients and since you are close to 0, perhaps yours is working too good.
Also slow down a bit, when starting with any nutrient dosing/ carbon dosing/ trace element dosing etc… start at 1/4 of the recommended dose, run for week or two and see what the trend is and adjust.
Your scape and the tank looks good, you are on the right track, just need to tweak a bit.

 

[Spdjnky]

I trimmed the refugium took a whole bunch out hopefully not too much because the nitrates went up to 23 ppm. dang shaking that refugium up sure did make a difference hopefully tomorrow I will see the nitrates come back down again. I got back to checking the phosphates and just as I thought they are zero again.
I dosed 15 milliliters of my potassium phosphate mixture that I have mixed up that gives me .02 ppm for 5 ml. It's late I am going to crash check in the morning.

 

[Pod_01]

Like I mentioned I don’t have fuge, hence I don’t know what the proper care is. I like to keep my system running on KISS principle. For nutrients export I only have skimmer (no fuge, no socks, no roller fleece, no NO3/PO4 reactors etc…). I tried some and got lost with all the different levers and at the end I was unable to figure out what was cause vs. effect. I do use NP Bacto Balance to feed the corals and I am at 1/2 of the minimum recommended dose.

Perhaps @Lou Ekus , @Hans-Werner (hope that works) can chime in and offer some advice. Alternatively you can reach out to Lou Ekus through the e-mail address on Tropic Marin USA web site:

Contact

Office Hours Monday to Friday 9:00 AM EST to 5 PM EST Lou & Leslie Eku s Office Phone: 413-367-0101 Email: [email protected]

www.tropicmarin-usa.com

Lou has helped me a lot on how to correctly use various TM products and provided pointers on how to tune my system.

Happy reefing.

 

[Spdjnky]

Hi thank you again and I'm still working on it and here's what happened this morning high phosphates were zero my nitrates were a little lower then I dosed 1 milliliter of NP Bacto Balance rechecked phosphates were at .04 PPM nitrate 21 PPM.
It's afternoon now nitrates 25 PPM I have not checked phosphate I only have 4 tests left Hanna won't have more until Wednesday I'm kind of at a loss right now thinking maybe I should do a water change as the hair algae in my aquarium is real bad I will try reaching out to Lou as you have suggested thank you stay tuned I have to get this
I did check phosphate because I had opened the packet before I decided not to check them they are at .05 PPM so I guess I'm OK it's just like how long do I have to wait for the hair algae to go away though.

 

[Spdjnky]

A little history on how I got to where I am at the top picture shows where the aquarium is at right now basically without the new corals that I just put in and the hair algae that is all over the place. In the center picture below you will see the rock work with sand that I originally had that got covered and had a real bad Dino outbreak as you can see. I then decided that the existing aquascape rockwork that I had was not sufficient enough in hiding places for the fish that are coming and decided at the same time to go bare bottom. In the process of doing this I had a separate bin that I put the old rockwork with Dinos in along with Dino X and a small UV sterilizer to get rid of them. It seems to work very well and at the same time I was doing this I was building new rockwork all the time keeping them in salt water or wet bacteria added and circulation the best that I could this is where I have got to now as you can see repeating myself. Even with the sand I have always had trouble keeping phosphates away from zero. I hope now this goes along to explaining a little bit of my situation and I can answer any more questions from here thank you in advance for any help that will straighten me out as I'm really not too sure what I'm doing.

 

[Pod_01]

There are many ways to get nice tank, also lot of the methods and how to deal with mature tanks full of corals that are stable. I have not found clear methods for beginners, and I struggled a lot.
What worked for me 1) use TM All For Reef 2) weekly 10% water changes 3) use TM Nitrobiotic and ReefActif weekly 4) use NP Bacto ballance 5) coral feeding (still struggling with correct amount)
6) Skimmer for filtration 7) Activated carbon (30g per 100l of water) change once a month, passive.
This seems to work for me and it is simple.
Here are some pictures: