Algae bloom holding nitrate/phosphate at 0?

[Osric]

Are you using a protein skimmer? They are not a fix but they help a lot with export and add a ton of O2 your system. The one mistake many nano hobbyist make is to use too much mechanical and chemical filtration. Remember, any media you are using as filtration is going to trap nutrients/detritus which will breakdown causing high nitrates. In my opinion and experience, chemical filter media like chemi-pure and such are not worth the cost. In my experience, they trap too much nutrients/detritus and cause more problems then they claim to cure. I quit using chemical media a year ago but will occasionally use a small carbon bag to polish out the yellow in the water column and I rinse the carbon bag in old water change water with each weekly water change.

 

I am running a Tunze 9002 skimmer but I can't seem to get it tuned up right. The best I can get out is a light tea-coloured skimmate and it takes many days to fill the StevieT cup.

 

Many people will disagree with me about my opinion on chemical filter media. But just remember the basics with reef(nano) filtration. Its not like freshwater where we can get away with high nitrates and phosphates. We really want to prevent the nitrogen cycle from happening. Meaning we don't want to trap nutrients/detritus in the water/filter so that they break down. We want to export them before they can begin to break down. Protein skimmers, weekly partial water changes - concentrating on vacuuming up as much detritus as possible, and a good clean up crew is usually all you need. I use one small sponge as mechanical filter media and it gets rinsed out every week with water changes and a protein skimmer - that's it for my filtration.

 

So I also used to run without chemi-pure, and I can't honestly say I see an enormous difference with or without it. I will pause here on the detritus point - I was also reading in The Reef Aquarium vol 3 that detritus buildup can cause a bloom, and my rockwork is arranged so that it's pretty hard to vacuum the sand and so I seldom do it. I used to blow detritus around with a turkey baster periodically but I have stopped doing that too. So this may be a legitimate source of my problem, especially in combination with the overfeeding theory above...

 

With the amount of frozen food you are feeding, I would say that is part of the problem - over feeding. As you know the algae is grabbing the phosphates and nitrates coming from that food and so your testers will show zero.

 

Last - you might want to consider your substrate. Are you using a sand bed? How deep is it? Sand beds will trap a lot of nutrients/detritus and cause algae issues. You can vacuum your sand bed using a long vac tube - just like a gravel vac in a freshwater tank. Or go bare bottom.

 

The substrate is black sand and figuring out how to clean it up a bit more seems like it should be a priority. I have only one nassarius snail in the tank, I could add another, and I could try to get some detritus out with water changes.

 

As for feeding frozen, 3/4 fishes in the tank eat pellets and the 4th should be OK on the fauna in the tank, so I could feed only pellets for a while. Honestly my past (unscientific) feeling was that the pellets caused algae problems when frozen did not, but at least with the pellets I can feed one by one and ensure they are all consumed. Thoughts on this?

 

Thanks for all the commentary. Sorry no pictures yet, will have to add them tomorrow...lights were out by the time I got to n-r tonight.

 

Osric

[matt frizz]

12 hours a day is too much light. Set your lights to a constant 7 1/2-8 hours a day and see if it isn't gone in a week. Sometimes I only keep the lights on for like 6 1/2 hours a day. Too much light is bad.

[Twilton]

i came back home and had this exact problem, its a like green almost brown slime containing bubbles, this spread everywhere in my tank all over my sand rock generally everything. The only thing i had changed was i went from 3 T5's to a 150w metal halide.

upon arriving home i changed my lights back to the T5's took my fish and corals out placed them in a qt tank for 2days while i scrubbed the rock with a tooth brush i used a net to catch the big chunks of the stuff and then let my canister filter catch the rest.

 

Its been 5days and the tank is doing fine all the params are in check the rocks are almost clean with the stuff now not growing back. All my filter media has been changed and everything re added. I also added 5 more turbo snails to see if they would finish it off. My hermits seem to like sniping it off and letting clumps float around.

 

Hope this will help or just letting you know that its not a loosing battle.

[wannenmacher]

had same issue go rid of it by dong WCs and manual removal.

[Osric]

So today was the first day of the reduced photoperiod. Obviously too soon to see if there's any impact.

 

I have my salinity back at 35 ppt through evaporation, and topped off and did about an 8 gallon water change (the first in more than a week). This time, though, I used a small koralia powerhead to blast the rock and the sand and stirred up a detritus storm - I am starting to believe most heavily in the theory that detritus (whether from overfeeding or from the fish themselves) has built up extensively in my tank, and lack of stirring/removal has led to my current problem. So this lends itself to a simple solution: more turbulence in the tank. I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile, I didn't manage to get pictures before the lights went out. Nothing on tomorrow, I should be able to get pictures mid-afternoon when the lights come on.

 

Osric

[rhunter513]

Tune that protein skimmer to a dryer skimmate too. And do a lot of manual removal and then just wait it out. I don't measure my salt in salinity so I don't know what 35ppm is, but that's about 1.025 SG? Are you using a refractometer? Also as someone else mentioned, check your source water to be sure its approx 0ppm TDS - the best reef investment you can make is a high quality RO filter.

[Osric]

Tune that protein skimmer to a dryer skimmate too. And do a lot of manual removal and then just wait it out. I don't measure my salt in salinity so I don't know what 35ppm is, but that's about 1.025 SG? Are you using a refractometer? Also as someone else mentioned, check your source water to be sure its approx 0ppm TDS - the best reef investment you can make is a high quality RO filter.

 

Wish I could get the Tunze tuned nicely. I am going to do the mod with the airline out the side and an easier to control air valve. I currently can get it too wet or get nothing.

 

35 ppt is about the same as 1.026, depending on the temp that you're measuring SG at of course. I do use a refractometer, I don't know of a more precise and still cost-effective way to check salinity.

 

I do also plan to buy my own RO filter, just haven't done it. Did you have a specific one to recommend?

 

Here's an FTS that shows the scale of the problem:

 

 

Note especially nuisance algae on the back wall and the amount of microalgae on the side glass. The front glass was cleaned 2-3 days before this was taken so the algae hasn't had time to come back on it. The side glass probably hasn't been cleaned in about 1-2 weeks as of this photo, and any spots that are clear are due to the urchin, who is also responsible for the white on the rocks on the right side of the tank. You can also see the problem algae pretty clearly on the vortex intake.

 

Osric

[callmesaul8889]

tagging along. im having almost the exact same problems with about 4-5 different types of algae. everything kicked off when i added a new fish 3 months ago and the day after i added it... all of the fish in my tank were dead; cue the algae. 0 TDS 10hr photoperiod with 4x24w sundial 0 nitrates/trites/po4. i'm actually running GFO and it didn't help 1 bit.

 

sorry for not having any input

[Osric]

tagging along. im having almost the exact same problems with about 4-5 different types of algae. everything kicked off when i added a new fish 3 months ago and the day after i added it... all of the fish in my tank were dead; cue the algae. 0 TDS 10hr photoperiod with 4x24w sundial 0 nitrates/trites/po4. i'm actually running GFO and it didn't help 1 bit.

 

sorry for not having any input

 

So far, a water change where I focused on getting out some of the detritus from the bottom seemed quite helpful, but then left without a change for a week suddenly algae started to appear quickly on the glass. So I'm going to try more of that as a next step. I did get some purigen but I lack a bag to run it in.

 

Osric

 

[edit]: PS I should also say that based on concerns I'm overfeeding I am temporarily feeding pellets only, one at a time, ensuring that they are all consumed. The tank currently has only 3 fish inhabitants, the two clowns and a flame angel. About once per week I'll add some phyto or oyster eggs or rotifiers, but in small quantities.