Wanted: Caulerpa

[P.Kelly]

I'm having a bit of a nitrate problem, causing daily water changes My chaetamorpha isn't keeping up, does anyone have a small quantity of caulerpa I could have? I'd glady trade some chaetamorpha for it.

 

[mpoletti]

What are your nitrates at? Calerpa is a very aggressive strain of algae. If it gets in your display, it can be very unmanageable and difficult to remove.

 

[P.Kelly]

If I change roughly 30% of my tank water daily I can keep the Nitrates below 20ppm.

Ammonia and Nitrite are both 0.

I moved the tank recently and the problems have occurred since then. I tossed the old DSB because it was saturated with bristleworms, and there is invariably a huge algae outbreak whenever a DSB is disturbed in a move.

I removed all the fish, but I'm guessing that the old LR just can't keep-up processing the Nitrate.

 

[Justin74]

Just as an added little tidbit. Bristleworms are good for your tank!! They help clean up detritus and any remnants of food that get missed by any critters.

-Justin

 

[P.Kelly]

Yes, they also had taken over. Anything in too much quantity is not good.

 

[mpoletti]

Because the tank is still settling in from the move, this process is going to take a little time. Did you seed the new sand bed? Marine depot has a product, AZ-NO3 that help reduce nitrates.

 

[P.Kelly]

I did seed the new bed from my established 55 gallon.

I have been using Prime as needed in the few rare occasions I've been unable to perform a daily water change.

I'm unable to find any reputable sources that can explain what AZ-N03 or prime do to actually decrease Nitrates. There seems to be quite a bit of contention that it may just mask the Nitrates from a test kit.