0 phos/nitrate bad?

[TwentyfiveCents]

I feed twice a day 2 cubes of random frozen cubes with some phyto and dry coral food but my nitrate are undetectable with redsea test kit and phos is at 0 with hanna ULR tester. still have small patches of GHA + cyano growing so there has to be nutrients available.....will my corals fade away if the nutrients are undetectable for an extended period of time?

Nutrients have always been low but not this low and its been going on for about 2 weeks now

 

[Doctorgori]

that algae may have some locked up ...
before you add any Nitrate on purpose, you could scape off some of that algae and leave it in the tank

 

[TwentyfiveCents]

I remove whatever GHA I can pick off, ita not a lot at all just in small holes on the rocks. Dosing triton on my system and wouldn't want to add any more stuff to dose, would people just feed more? turn the skimmer off? Maybe shut the light off on the refugium for longer period of time?

 

[John08007]

Is the chaeto growing in your refugium? You need nitrate and phosphate in the tank. If you have cyano i would use chemiclean to knock it out. Maybe turn the lights back in your display tank and get a food cleanup crew. Emerald crabs, snails, etc. This way you took care of the cyano, hurting your gha by cutting back the lights and giving your refugium a chance to take off.

 

[Doctorgori]

wouldn’t step up feeding per se unless you got the corals to soak it up.
I’d keep my refugium cycle for now just for pH purposes.. you could cut down on the hours but I’d pull some macro in tandem
all things considered, I’d skim a lil less at first, at least up until it causes algae issues

 

[TwentyfiveCents]

Yea my refugium is packed I have to remove chaeto every 2 weeks. Not too worried about the GHA and cyano but def worried about the extremely low nutrient levels, how long would would it take for my corals to feel the effwct of the low nutrients?

 

[IslandLifeReef]

If you are running a fuge and the chaeto is growing, you are probably fine. You are measuring left over nutrients with those tests, and they may not be accurate enough for your low levels. Just keep an eye on the corals and only change something if you notice the corals starting to decline. Taking pictures every few weeks will make it easier to compare.

That’s my 25+1 cents.

 

[John08007]

Yea my refugium is packed I have to remove chaeto every 2 weeks. Not too worried about the GHA and cyano but def worried about the extremely low nutrient levels, how long would would it take for my corals to feel the effwct of the low nutrients?

If this is the case then you do have nitrates, just reading any excess nitrate. You can adjust your refugium light back some so that it slows the uptake of nitrate. I believe there was actually a brs video where they mentioned this idea.

I would up your cleanup crew, once they have it in check the refugium alone will be able to control the algae in the display.

 

[blasterman]

Get a bottle of Vibrant to knock out the GHA. Stuff is magical.

Cut your fuge lighting time by 65%.

 

[TwentyfiveCents]

Get a bottle of Vibrant to knock out the GHA. Stuff is magical.

Cut your fuge lighting time by 65%.

I think vibrant kills all algae so I would have to remove my chaeto

 

[John08007]

I think vibrant kills all algae so I would have to remove my chaeto

Yes, it will knock out your chaeto. I would recommend to remove it 1st so it doesn't die in the tank releasing all the nitrate in it.

Never done it, but I suppose you can do a water change and put the water into a 10gal or so. Put an air stone in it for movement with your grow light above it. Dose some sodium nitrate to feed it and keep it alive till your tank it clean and a few weeks after using vibrant.

I personally used vibrant, it was a miracle what it did for my algae probs.