5 ppm nitrates 0 ppm phosphate dinos and hair algae taking over 8 year old tank

N

Neptune90

New member
tank parameters: 29 gallon biocube
ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate: 5 (reading 0 after todays water change)
calcium: 425
alkalinity: 9.9
magnesium: 1320
ph: salifert says 7.7 apera ph 20 says 8 not sure which to go by

I've been having an issue in my 29 gallon biocube where my phosphates are reading 0 according to a salifert phosphate kit. my nitrates were 160+ but I've gotten them down by lots of water changes over time to 5 ppm but today after a water change it looked like zero. i'm just getting this tank back in order after getting it back In a divorce, it went 2 years with out a water change. it was possibly topped up with tap water only when the pump started sucking air, it was very low on water and salinity was pretty high.

I've got two clown fish plus a cleaner shrimp. I bought a zoa and hammer coral before I realized having zero phosphates could affect them badly, they haven't been opening fully, sometimes the hammer looks good but most the time the zoa is closed up. after adding the coral the Dinos started showing up for some reason, it just the past few days and they took over fast. I always thought Dinos showed up in low phos and low nitrate, but my nitrate was at least 10 when they started but phos was zero. I was running chemipure elite and perigean in my media rack, I took them both out today with hopes of increasing my phosphate. I started feeding different blends of frozen food morning and nightly to hopefully increase it too.

I was wondering what's the best way to increase phosphate, I took out the chemipure and purigen but im not sure how big of a difference that's going to make. I was looking at some of brightwells products. they have neophos for adding phosphate but im not sure if that's something I want to mess with, just makes me nervous adding something like that. theirs also Brightwell clean, and seven that might help.

I guess my question is the low phos and now lower nitrate is contributing or was it the high nitrate/ low phos problem contributing, maybe I made changes too fast. should I wait it out and see if the changes I made will help balance things out again or should I try the Brightwell products for a time period to see if that helps. I was also thinking of getting the Hannah ULR phosphate checker to make it easier to see my levels. it had no light for over two years because I couldn't get replacement bulbs for the biocube lid plus the divorce, now I have a nicrew 100 running at about 30% power.
 
From what I’ve gathered recently, you don’t want NO3 and PO4 or any combo of them at zero. That was old school (and my) thinking. Here’s a read on my fight with Cyano.

https://forums.reefcentral.com/threads/griss’-battle-with-cyano-all-the-things-i’ve-tried.32371955/

Now, I’m starting to win the fight by NOT having nitrate and phosphate at zero.
 
Neptune90 said:
my question is the low phos and now lower nitrate is contributing or was it the high nitrate/ low phos problem contributing
Click to expand...
My guess is the high levels and lack of maintenance. I would let it do its thing and harvest as much as possible. Continue with regular maintenance. Welcome back to the hobby.
 
Welcome to ReefCentral!

Begin manually removing the hair algae day by day. It will take a while, but be persistent. You can use peroxide as a target treatment to help, but I'd suggest manual removal first.

10% weekly RODI water changes will help get things stable.

I'd suggest a Hanna ULR Phosphorous Checker instead of ULR Phosphate Checker since your levels are so low.

I would not dose anything for now.

Post a picture of the tank and filtration.

Make small incremental changes. Nothing good happens fast in the reef aquarium!!
 
griss said:
From what I’ve gathered recently, you don’t want NO3 and PO4 or any combo of them at zero. That was old school (and my) thinking. Here’s a read on my fight with Cyano.

https://forums.reefcentral.com/threads/griss’-battle-with-cyano-all-the-things-i’ve-tried.32371955/

Now, I’m starting to win the fight by NOT having nitrate and phosphate at zero. 0w
Click to expand...

I read through the thread, hopefully you can continue to reduce the algae you have. I'll follow along the progress. hopefully the changes I made help increase PO4 a bit. chemipure elite is carbon and gfo mixture so that could definitely be cleaning my water of PO4 to much. I was also wondering if all the algae growth could be giving me a false negative by using up all the available phos also.
 
JohnL said:
My guess is the high levels and lack of maintenance. I would let it do its thing and harvest as much as possible. Continue with regular maintenance. Welcome back to the hobby.
Click to expand...
thanks for the welcome back! I added in a turbo snail and a few other small ones to hopefully clean it up some. I reduced my lights because I noticed the Dinos go away at night when lights are off. im going to mix up a bucket of salt water and pull my rocks out one by one and scrub them off real good. mean time ill let it do its thing and weekly water changes.
 
Neptune90 said:
thanks for the welcome back! I added in a turbo snail and a few other small ones to hopefully clean it up some. I reduced my lights because I noticed the Dinos go away at night when lights are off. im going to mix up a bucket of salt water and pull my rocks out one by one and scrub them off real good. mean time ill let it do its thing and weekly water changes.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good plan to me.
 
mtnbike101 said:
Welcome to ReefCentral!

Begin manually removing the hair algae day by day. It will take a while, but be persistent. You can use peroxide as a target treatment to help, but I'd suggest manual removal first.

10% weekly RODI water changes will help get things stable.

I'd suggest a Hanna ULR Phosphorous Checker instead of ULR Phosphate Checker since your levels are so low.

I would not dose anything for now.

Post a picture of the tank and filtration.

Make small incremental changes. Nothing good happens fast in the reef aquarium!!
Click to expand...
thanks for the welcome! okay I plan to mix up a bucket of salt water and pull my rocks out one by one and scrub them off real good. ill continue with the weekly water changes with rodi water and I won't dose anything or make and big changes. ill get the checker you recommended, I wasn't sure which would be best when I was originally looking at them. ill try to get a few picture up, I think I need to find a image hosting site because direct uploads say its to big.
 
here's some pics with mostly the whites on so you can see the algae good without it being all blue. flirtation is a in tank media basket with filter floss (I use polyester stuffing). I don't have a skimmer because their isn't much room for one, I had one at one point but I couldn't get it to work good then the motor burned out when I wasn't there to maintain stuff.
 

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Neptune90 said:
thanks for the welcome! okay I plan to mix up a bucket of salt water and pull my rocks out one by one and scrub them off real good. ill continue with the weekly water changes with rodi water and I won't dose anything or make and big changes. ill get the checker you recommended, I wasn't sure which would be best when I was originally looking at them. ill try to get a few picture up, I think I need to find a image hosting site because direct uploads say its to big.
Click to expand...

Here's an article on the difference between the Phosphate and Phosphorous Hanna Checkers

While you have the rocks out of the tank, you could use a paint brush and lightly apply some hydrogen peroxide to the areas where you remove GHA. Make sure NOT to get it on anything you want to survive! Let it bubble for 30 minutes and then rinse with some mixed salt water and place back in tank.
 
\
mtnbike101 said:
Here's an article on the difference between the Phosphate and Phosphorous Hanna Checkers

While you have the rocks out of the tank, you could use a paint brush and lightly apply some hydrogen peroxide to the areas where you remove GHA. Make sure NOT to get it on anything you want to survive! Let it bubble for 30 minutes and then rinse with some mixed salt water and place back in tank.
Click to expand...
awesome thanks for the article, that helped a lot. I ordered the ULR phosphorus checker. I took them out and scrubbed them off, I got the majority of the algae off so hopefully that helps. ill try the peroxide next time if I have to take them out and scrub them again.
 
Neptune90 said:
tank parameters: 29 gallon biocube
ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate: 5 (reading 0 after todays water change)
calcium: 425
alkalinity: 9.9
magnesium: 1320
ph: salifert says 7.7 apera ph 20 says 8 not sure which to go by

I've been having an issue in my 29 gallon biocube where my phosphates are reading 0 according to a salifert phosphate kit. my nitrates were 160+ but I've gotten them down by lots of water changes over time to 5 ppm but today after a water change it looked like zero. i'm just getting this tank back in order after getting it back In a divorce, it went 2 years with out a water change. it was possibly topped up with tap water only when the pump started sucking air, it was very low on water and salinity was pretty high.

I've got two clown fish plus a cleaner shrimp. I bought a zoa and hammer coral before I realized having zero phosphates could affect them badly, they haven't been opening fully, sometimes the hammer looks good but most the time the zoa is closed up. after adding the coral the Dinos started showing up for some reason, it just the past few days and they took over fast. I always thought Dinos showed up in low phos and low nitrate, but my nitrate was at least 10 when they started but phos was zero. I was running chemipure elite and perigean in my media rack, I took them both out today with hopes of increasing my phosphate. I started feeding different blends of frozen food morning and nightly to hopefully increase it too.

I was wondering what's the best way to increase phosphate, I took out the chemipure and purigen but im not sure how big of a difference that's going to make. I was looking at some of brightwells products. they have neophos for adding phosphate but im not sure if that's something I want to mess with, just makes me nervous adding something like that. theirs also Brightwell clean, and seven that might help.

I guess my question is the low phos and now lower nitrate is contributing or was it the high nitrate/ low phos problem contributing, maybe I made changes too fast. should I wait it out and see if the changes I made will help balance things out again or should I try the Brightwell products for a time period to see if that helps. I was also thinking of getting the Hannah ULR phosphate checker to make it easier to see my levels. it had no light for over two years because I couldn't get replacement bulbs for the biocube lid plus the divorce, now I have a nicrew 100 running at about 30% power.
Click to expand...
You might read what 369Augold posted recently.
 
369Augold said:
May 17,2023
Click to expand...
so you dose ammonia to lower your phosphours and raise nitrate if im understanding that correctly. right now according to my salifert I have 0 phosphate, I have a ulr phosphorus Hannah checker on the way to verify that though. my nitrates are sitting at about 5 right now. so I read people dose 1 drop per 10 gallons, I have some dr.tims ammonium chloride on had because im cycling a tank right now so I could use that but im not sure if this would be a good option for me because of where my parameters are sitting right now. any thoughts? thank you
 
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