Algae and chaeto vs nitrates - fun times

[Logical_Plan]

So a fun little start for me on water chemistry.

I have about 150 gallons of water for cycling my aquascapes while I wait for tanks to arrive and stand to finish.

Three brute trash cans plumbed to an old 26 gallon bow front display. Kessel h160 growing some chaeto out and some nice green hair algae. 12-hour photo period, full intensity.

Going to let algae and chaeto grow to see if I can lower nitrates without water change over the next couple weeks. Seems to move really slowly. Should be interesting to watch.

Not sure if I am going to clean glass or let algae grow till nitrates start to go down. Will probably clean it and let it regrow.

Parameters:
Temp 78.3
PH 8.10-8.17
Salinity 1.026 (Milwaukee)
Nitrates 50ppm (Nyos)
Phosphate 0.06ppm (Hanna ULR)
NH3 0.005 (Seneye)
Dosing:
Ammonium chloride (2.5 mL daily)
Chaeto grow (5mL weekly)
MB7 (10mL weekly)

Let me know what you think and how long it might take for algae and chaeto to consume nitrate. I'm testing and logging every couple days. Currently sine algae started this week nitrate has not gone down yet from 50ppm.

My guess is it will take a couple weeks to get enough algae growing to lower levels, then I can harvest for export.

 

[KrisReef]

As long as you keep:
"Dosing:
Ammonium chloride (2.5 mL daily)
Chaeto grow (5mL weekly)
MB7 (10mL weekly)..."

you are adding unknown (to me, and too lazy to look further) amounts of N (and probably iron and phosphorus?) with these "magic" fertilzer chemicals so that your chaeto growth may never get to be fast enough to catch up with the additions into the system. It's an interesting question and hopefully you will see rapid growth of the chaeto and lowering of nutrients along the way.

How about a picture of those cycling scapes? The original picture doesn't provide much visual stimulus for us to get excited for you. We need scape ****, please.

(My wife alread knows I have a scape-**** problem. )

Show me! (edit: lol- Can't type p*rn on here, andmy giant grooper gif got deleted too ?
^^^^

How about a nice family pic

 

[Logical_Plan]

As long as you keep:
"Dosing:
Ammonium chloride (2.5 mL daily)
Chaeto grow (5mL weekly)
MB7 (10mL weekly)..."

you are adding unknown (to me, and too lazy to look further) amounts of N (and probably iron and phosphorus?) with these "magic" fertilzer chemicals so that your chaeto growth may never get to be fast enough to catch up with the additions into the system. It's an interesting question and hopefully you will see rapid growth of the chaeto and lowering of nutrients along the way.

How about a picture of those cycling scapes? The original picture doesn't provide much visual stimulus for us to get excited for you. We need scape ****, please.

(My wife alread knows I have a scape-**** problem. )

Show me! (edit: lol- Can't type p*rn on here, andmy giant grooper gif got deleted too ?
^^^^

How about a nice family pic

I know there are variables with the dosing. Curious to see the algae growth with the high nitrates. Ammonium chloride should add 1ppm of nitrate daily, approximately.

Pics of scape attached. Wet one is hard to get a good shot of. PVC one is for a dedicated mantis shrimp tank. So hard to get good photos though. Front and top of each attached.

Need to finish mortar and joint coverage on mantis shrimp and cover joints on the other two.

Each scape is between 40 an 60 lbs of rock.

 

[Logical_Plan]

I was watching parkers reef and he went hands off his small tank for a month and the algae on the glass zeroed out his nitrate and phosphate.

Hoping I can get reduction, then harvest the GHA. I read that chaeto grows better in more reasonable nitrate levels.

Time will tell.

 

[Logical_Plan]

Alright, I could not leave the algae on the glass, so I cleaned it up. Here are a few pics. Chaeto is growing nicely, but watching it every day makes it seem like no growth at all. Got some algae on the bottom of the glass that my snails are enjoying as food. Looks like I also have some diatoms on the rocks. Will be interesting to see how all this progresses.

Parameter and dosing update:
Parameters:
Temp 77.5
PH 8.02
Salinity 1.026 (Milwaukee)
Nitrates 50ppm (Nyos)
Phosphate 0.04ppm (Hanna ULR)
NH3 0.006 (Seneye)
Calcium 434 (Hannah)
Alkalinity 6.4dKh (Hannah)
Magnesium 1320 (Aquaforest)
Dosing:
Ammonium chloride (stopped dosing for now till I see what happens with Nitrates)
Chaeto grow (5mL weekly)
MB7 (10mL weekly)
Vodka (1.2mL daily)

This is the first time that I have taken Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium readings. Pretty much right on the money to what Tropic Marine Pro mixes to. Alkalinity is a tad low but I think that it is locked up in the high nitrates from the fresh cycle for now and should be released back into the water as the chaeto grows (also the other algae growth)

I have also had a pH dip, I believe this is due to the aquascapes that I added to the bins for cycling. I noticed a pH drop when I cycled just the marine pure blocks while the bacteria colonies that convert nitrite to nitrate were established. It is that time frame again right now in the system. I am hoping to see it bounce back a bit once the Nitrite is reduced.

Also, I suspect that my Nitrate reading is not entirely accurate due to Nitrites. I don't plan on testing for Nitrite since this is just to get my rock started cycling for eventual movement to the main display and has lots of time still. It will be ready once the main display is up, then a good saltwater rinse and away I go. However, I did dilute the sample water with 50% fresh mix saltwater and it only reduced the Nitrate reading by 10 to 40ppm. The new saltwater tested 0ppm. I am assuming that this means that the Nitrite is throwing off the results.

I am being a bit mad scientist with this starting set up so I can experiment and learn without killing fish or corals. An interesting journey so far. Very slow moving.

Thoughts?

 

[Logical_Plan]

Parameter and dosing update:
Parameters:
Temp 77.0
PH 8.12
Salinity 1.026 (Milwaukee)
Nitrates 25ppm (Nyos)
Phosphate 0.05ppm (Hanna ULR)
NH3 0.001 (Seneye)
Calcium 425 (Hannah)
Alkalinity 6.6dKh (Hannah)
Magnesium 1320 (Aquaforest)
Dosing:
Ammonium chloride (stopped dosing for now till I see what happens with Nitrates)
Chaeto grow (3mL daily)
MB7 (10mL weekly)
Vodka (1.2mL daily)
Seachem Florish Phosphate (5mL daily)

Turns out I was phosphate limited. Phosphates zeroed out, two weeks ago. Started dosing 5mL daily Seachem Phosphate and algae and chaeto really started to take off.

Nitrates started to come down too, will see where next week brings me and I may back off the phosphate some. Levels are slowly rising and a bit higher than I want to run at. Gaining 0.01 phosphate every 3-days or so.

Hopefully, next week nitrates will be around 15 and I can harvest all this algae and remove from the tank.

I am interested to see if the hair algae takes over the cyano first though!

Happy reefing.

 

[Aqua Man]

Ammonium chloride (stopped dosing for now till I see what happens with Nitrates)
Chaeto grow (3mL daily)
MB7 (10mL weekly)
Vodka (1.2mL daily)
Seachem Florish Phosphate (5mL daily)

Neat experiment! I’ve read that some alga prefer ammonium, they are reefers that dose it into thriving reefs!

So it’s interesting to me to see the nitrates that high. I would expect the ammonia to be used by the algae before being converted by bacteria.

 

[Logical_Plan]

Neat experiment! I’ve read that some alga prefer ammonium, they are reefers that dose it into thriving reefs!

So it’s interesting to me to see the nitrates that high. I would expect the ammonia to be used by the algae before being converted by bacteria.

I was running a low dose of ammonium chloride. My nitrate built up from that when cycling rock.

Since there is nothing to feed in the tank, I had no phosphate input. Once that was fixed, things started growing.

I think the carbon dosing was a mistake, since there is no skimmer on this system. If levels of nitrate come down next week, I will stop carbon dosing for a week and see what happens.

If that works, I am going to try and par the levels at 0.03 Phosphate and 3-8 Nitrate and dose amonium daily and phosphate to just grow the chaeto.

Unfortunately, my main system is almost up and running, so play time might be over before I see full results.

 

[Aqua Man]

If that works, I am going to try and par the levels at 0.03 Phosphate and 3-8 Nitrate and dose amonium daily and phosphate to just grow the chaeto.

If more people did this to there rocks, for dry rock set ups, I think there would be less Dino problems.

 

[Logical_Plan]

If more people did this to there rocks, for dry rock set ups, I think there would be less Dino problems.

I am fully bracing for a dino outbreak in this dry start system. If I am lucky and avoid it, that would be awesome.

I am in the process of reading a 23 page thread where @brandon429 guided someone through a dry start. Only about 5 pages in now though. I hope to glean a few tidbits on early immature system balance to avoid major issues with algae, cyano and dinos in the display.

I expect issues though, I'm new. I hope to be able to manage them with a reasonable effort though.