Phosphate and nitrate question

[mserebro]

Hi everyone! I've had my 150 gal sps tank for close to a year now and spend a lot of time battling hair algae. There is one concept which I keep seeing in this forum which puzzles me - phosphate and nitrates need to be above 0. I've seen this myself. By adding chaeto and rowaphos, I have stripped the water and saw many corals loose their color. Since then, I reduced the above and started feeding more. The color came back but so did the algae. My question is this: how is it possible to have detectable levels of phosphate and nitrate and NOT have algae growing? All TOTMs which I see are clean as a whistle. Mine has tons of hair algae on rocks and undetectable nitrates and phosphates. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[julie180]

Nitrates and phosphates are being consumed by the algae. Sounds like you need to focus less on the numbers and find a balance between "dirty" and "clean" that give you good sps color but not enough to feed algae.

 

[brianr24]

I'm new to hobby shouldn't b giving advice but from what I learned phosphates r best kept below.03 this will kill off algae.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Where did the rock come from?

 

[CStrickland]

There's 0 and there's 0.000. What tests are you using to measure?
I think that diff corals like diff levels of inorganic phos, or are more tolerant anyway, what are you trying to grow?
I bet even the TOTM's have bad days, it's good to remember that anybody would shine their tank up for the pics. Not that they do anything shady, just that's the tanks best presentation.

 

[mserebro]

thanks all for replies. rock was from BRS - dry rock. That was almost a year ago. checking phosphate with Hanna and Red Sea test kits. both are zero. I agree that the algae is using up Phosphate so it registers zero, but then how do other people have higher levels of phosphate and no hair algae? My guess is that i do not have enough nitrate (also registers as 0 by red sea test kits) and the system is not balanced. I am actually thinking of dosing more nitrates to the system but hesitant since that could be dangerous. Any thoughts?

 

[mserebro]

Most of my corals are SPS, the dark purple colors tend to fade first, followed by reds.

 

[PhaneSoul]

What are you doing for nutrient export besides the rowaphos? Just chaeto? Did you reduce both when you started feeding more or just one?

The less organic waste you leave in the system the less inorganic nutrients which does great to limit algae growth. The less inorganic nutrients the more you will need to feed (some) coral organic nutrients.

The more organic waste you leave in the system to rot the more inorganic nutrients and the more inorganic nutrient binders you will need, like gfo, carbon, macro. But the catch is some of your corals still want organic nutrients to be healthy. Although proper maintenance should be kept even if all these inorganic binders work for you.

Kindve like a pick your poison thing.

 

[CStrickland]

I've noticed that a lot of spiffier tanks tend to stock herbivores like tangs.
What fish do you have?

 

[mserebro]

I have good flow, mag18, 2 mp40 and a tunze. Reef octopus skimmer, filter socks, gac and rowaphos. Socks changed every two days. Refugeum with chaeto. For fish I only have powder brown tang, hippo, two clowns and a flasher wrasse. This is for 150 gal tank with 33 gal sump. Tangs don't help with hair algae. Neither are the snails unfortunately. I rutinely take out rocks and scrub them in a separate bucket to clean algae, but corals are not happy with that.

 

[Flippers4pups]

When you got your rock, did you put it in a bin with saltwater and test for phospates?