Algae and other tank issues

[A Toadstool Leather]

My tank has been running for a bit over a year now and I have noticed a lack of coral growth, and algae problems are beginning to surface up. My parameters are as follows:
alk: 7.3 dkh (salifert)
Calcium: 350ppm(salifert)
Mg.:1350ppm(salifert)
salinity: 35ppt (refractrometer)
po4: 0ppm (hanna)
Nitrate: 5ppm
I have not idea why algae is growing with low phosphate. Is the low phosphate harming my corals?
I change 5 gallons of water per week out of a 30 gallon tank, and siphon the sand every time I do so. My params have been like this for awhile aside from the low ca, there have been not nitrite/ammonia issues either which is why I left it off.

 

[brandon429]

Your tank has large detritus stores fueling the issue. Your tank and the fix for it is exactly like this one, if you want a custom fix for it let me know.


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/id-algae-or-bacteria.434355/#post-4996832


This thread here covers your thread fully, once you post full tank pics we can tie it all in easily. If you have a nano, then you can be algae free regardless of any parameter or invader ID. Once you see the power of simply making all the detritus go away, you'll never purposefully farm algae or other invaders again.

You'll be able to feed triple what you do now, which drives coral growth.

The reason you can't feed ideally now has to do with current maximum detritus stores, invader coverage which excludes corals, and we undo that in about forty tanks in the examples linked in that example thread above.

Yay to getting up like an old man at 4am without the need for an alarm. I get first dibs on all the challenge threads.

 

[A Toadstool Leather]

Your tank has large detritus stores fueling the issue. Your tank and the fix for it is exactly like this one, if you want a custom fix for it let me know.


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/id-algae-or-bacteria.434355/#post-4996832


This thread here covers your thread fully, once you post full tank pics we can tie it all in easily. If you have a nano, then you can be algae free regardless of any parameter or invader ID. Once you see the power of simply making all the detritus go away, you'll never purposefully farm algae or other invaders again.

You'll be able to feed triple what you do now, which drives coral growth.

The reason you can't feed ideally now has to do with current maximum detritus stores, invader coverage which excludes corals, and we undo that in about forty tanks in the examples linked in that example thread above.

Yay to getting up like an old man at 4am without the need for an alarm. I get first dibs on all the challenge threads.

My sand has been in my tank for a year now, and some of it was in a previous tank that ran for over a year. Should I just remove or replace my sand bed? Thanks for the advice btw.

 

[brandon429]

truly it’s best to replace it

The rationale is that the grains have sat in the presence of detritus and phosphate a while now. We could rinse them but better to replace with fresh sand and your years and feeding routine will be the phosphate eventually bound there one day. My thread proves that sandbed are care tires and need to be rotated though volume and bioloading differs tank to tank and timing of eutrophication (algae domination in relation to system clouding and waste stores)

halfway in that thread I switch out my own sandbed brand new fully pre rinsed ocean direct, mine was 3 or so years old and just swapped instantly out. Harmless but needs to be done in an ordered step

Can you post a full tank shot I’d predict a full turnaround skip cycle rebuild can be done, it opens up porosity in the system to flush out the filters, which includes substrates not just filters


Anything that catches floc and waste, the clouding we know to be there, is the filter. Aquarists have been trained to clean half the filtration system in a reef tank, the other half compiles enough waste for much more dilution to be required in order to prevent invasion and eutrophication. Let’s see what we’ve got, I bet it’s not bad

In fact it can be rebooted in about a day, tank total volume is the only barrier we face


All smaller tanks instantly comply


If you would document the fix steps in pics, including the rock cleaning and peroxide steps after the sandbed is cleaned or replaced, lots of eyes want to see tank rework being done and I’m lookimg for new works to compile for my sand rinse thread.

 

[brandon429]

Hey you could do a really neat measure and contribute the first measure of this kind into the sand rinse data. Dredge test the sandbed concentrate from the removed sand before discarding it

We all banter about detritus etc but nobody actually bothered to test it in our threads, toss in some dark skimmate in a separate test for the icing on the pancake

We all want to know the neutrality or the bioloading associated with pure sandbed diaper mud. The way to test it is the way environmental engineers at beef processing plants and aquaculture facilities test it, they do a biological oxygen demand sample maturation on the water and sludge and some of the data that generates from that labwork is nitrogen loading


Creatively catch and decant down a sample of detritus waste from the reaches of the bed, pour off top water till it’s concentrated brown as you can get

Set that cup on a windowsill and stir it twice a day for three days, this is about the right incubation time of year in a windowsill yep, on day three run a nitrate sample on that bad boy


If on day six the sample reads even higher, then we’ve got linear proof that filth evident to the eyes is filthy even as it matures in aerobic conditions lol


phosphate too, if you got em

All that would be post gold...if you are considering doing a bed dive anyways.