No3 po4 x isnt working

[mattwils71]

my 14 gallon reef tank is 3-4 months old and was doing great! i had a bit of green algae on the glass and rocks, which was understandable my nitrates were at 30ppm.
i run a skimmer less tank with a hob filter with seachem purigen seachem phosguard and poly filter. i don't have much coral atm but i run a 165w full spectrum led.
my stockist at the time was
2x clownfish both under 2 inches
1x yellow head jawfish 2 inches
1x cleaner shrimp full size

i thought it would be smart to dose red sea no3 po4 x to eliminate the algae, due to my own stupid self :debi: i killed my jawfish cleaner shrimp and 1 clownfish.
so now I'm left with 1 fish and hair algae...
weird thing was that my jawfish and clownfish vanished i couldn't find them and its been 2 weeks now so I'm pretty sure they are dead somewhere underneath the sand.

the hair algae is getting worse, on the sand and rock. BUT when doing water tests my nitrates are at 0ppm and my phosphate is at 0-0.25ppm ?!?!?! yet algae is still spreading?????
I'm still dosing no3 po4 x at 2ml per day and i have removed my filter media to see if that will help it??
my guess is that the algae is using up the nitrate and phosphate so it is undetectable.
any advice will be great :rollface:

 

[Crooked Reef]

You can not run nopox without a skimmer. It says so in the instructions and it is telling the truth. Nopox gives bacteria food and the bacteria multiply. This bacteria eats nitrates and phosphates but must be removed by a skimmer. Otherwise it will die in the tank and crash it or use all the available oxygen and choke the tank out.

 

[garyinco]

What Crooked Reef said.

And it takes awhile for NoPox to kick in. About the time you finally give up, saying it is not working, the bacteria get going and it works great on nitrates. OK on phosphates.

Where are you getting your water for water changes? From the tap, mixed at fish store, or ...

Get a couple of snails and a couple of hermit crabs from the LFS. The hermits might eat a little of the hair algae. Snails not as much. But they will crawl around and convert detritus bits into smaller waste in the water column. The skimmer you are going to get will then be able to process that waste out. Instead of it just spreading out thru your water and becoming fertilizer for all the algae.