Can I fix this with money or patience?

ViciousDlishus · Jul 21, 2018

Dosed 2.4 ml (to get me to 0.03) of flourish phosphorus as per directions at 11pm. Tested 11am no phosphate. Redosed 2.4 ml.

How long should I wait to test and see if I can get a reading?

Should I continue to dose and test throughout the day to maintain that level?

Can there be a backlog of needed phosphate?

MTBake · Jul 21, 2018

ViciousDlishus said:
Dosed 2.4 ml (to get me to 0.03) of flourish phosphorus as per directions at 11pm. Tested 11am no phosphate. Redosed 2.4 ml.

How long should I wait to test and see if I can get a reading?

Should I continue to dose and test throughout the day to maintain that level?

Can there be a backlog of needed phosphate?

Yes, the tank can be phosphate limited. It will use it up rapidly if it is keep an eye on nitrates as well. Those tend to drop once the system starts using up phosphate. It should balance out over time.

I see the same thing with my tank. I dose to .04ppm and 8 hrs later it's back to 0. If I test 2 hours after dosing, I'll see 20-30ppb on the Hanna Ulr tester.

Going to slowly up my dose to .06-.08ppm every 12 hours until it maintains a phosphate reading.

O'l Salty · Jul 21, 2018

ViciousDlishus said:
Just found that was an option and just picked it up. Is the dosage the same for sw?

That's what I use and it's great stuff. They have a very accurate calculator on their website. I get almost exactly the rise I'm looking for with their formulas.

ViciousDlishus · Jul 21, 2018

I've been able to get a detectable phosphate! I'm at 10 ppb or 0.03. Nitrate is at 2ppm and I will be working on getting that up to 5ppm now.

Will reducing my light cycle help corals recuperate?

ViciousDlishus · Aug 30, 2018

Update to this thread. I have subsequently stabilized my phos between 9 and 14 ppb with no further dosing. Nitrates I'm still having trouble maintaining anything higher than 2-3 and am dosing irregularly to try and increase. I don't currently have an easily accessible source of Nitrate in Canada which is a pain.

After raising those numbers and diligently scrubbing and filtering chrysophytes I think it's safe to say I beat them. Might have some additional target areas to address in the future but green hair and cyano (disappears by morning) are more prevalent now.

My sps however took a big hit. I think with the ultra low nutrients and my alk around 9.5+ they couldn't handle it. I've taken my doser offline for the past week and am trying to get alk to drop. It's going very slowly.

I don't want to chase numbers but want to be sure I'm correcting my issues as I've had next to no growth for several months. Here's where I'm at now.

Ph varies throughout the day from 8.15 to 8.3
Alk 9.65 trying to bring down to around 7.5
Nitrate 2
Cal 455
Temp 79
Phos 9 ppb or 0.028

Is there anything I can do about the cyano or just let it run its course? It's clearly not due to high nutrients.

mcarroll · Sep 1, 2018

That's great news overall!!!

A few comments...

ViciousDlishus said:
Ph varies throughout the day from 8.15 to 8.3
Alk 9.65 trying to bring down to around 7.5
Nitrate 2
Cal 455
Temp 79
Phos 9 ppb or 0.028

Is there anything I can do about the cyano or just let it run its course? It's clearly not due to high nutrients.

I'd probably stop watching pH.

Try your best to dose nutrients daily so they don't bottom out anymore....both test numbers are still pretty low, so would be in potential danger of doing so.

I also wouldn't worry too much about alk. With nutrient no longer out of whack (in particular, phosphates) is shouldn't be an issue.

Focus on keeping nutrients stable and staying on top of new algae growth. Keep all algae under control/keep them from dominating by manual methods...plucking, scrubbing and siphoning...as well a CUC upgrades as needed.

(Some, maybe all, algae blooms resolve totally without intervention as long as the environmental conditions are corrected, but usually we can help progress along. In some cases help is a requirement.)

And yes, cyano should just be a phase. Not unlike what a new tank goes through, but probably more pronounced since the tank isn't new/empty.

So don't be surprised if you see the "classic" transition from cyano to green algae to coraline. Don't try to stop it, just help it keep progressing with the methods listed above. Methods here Algae Cure!! Spot Treating Algae With Peroxide can be used as well if it seems necessary.

ViciousDlishus · Dec 6, 2018

I'm still experiancing issues with growth and sps stn from the base up . Latest parameters included in photos. These alk cal and mag numbers have remained relatively consistent. By consistent I mean both stable and constant without dosing or water changes. (alk was dropped over the period of a Month to to 8.7 and I didn't see any change so brought back up given what my salt mixes at)

Ive done a good job of maintaining nutrients above zero consistently. Over time my Nitrate has started creeping up and not falling as it was before. As such no further Nitrate dosing. Phos is now taking care of itself.

I have had a huge algae outbreak (I believe bryopsis) I have flucanozole and am planning on treating but wondering if I should reduce Nitrate first. I pulled as much out as I could manually (despite what I'm supposed to do with bryopsis but treating so hope it won't matter).

Chrysophytes are gone. So that's a win.

Next to zero Coralline algae.

Frustrated beyond belief given my numbers are always within range but I'm not getting results. Tired of losing sticks and with 76 days in qt (where they seem to do better than display) just to have them die I hate trying.