Dinos with 0 phosphates and nitrates.

[Goozers]

Hello. I new to the hobby and my tank is about 7 months old. I’ve been having dino algae for about a month or so with zero nitrates and phosphates. I dropped my lighting to just 30% blue and no whites. I’ve researched on here to dose up phosphates first to around .10. Then nitrates. Problem is when I dose with neophos using the bottles recommended amount after 4 days I didn’t notice my alkalinity rose up to 14.5! My alkalinity has usually ran around 10 before. So I did daily 10% water changes and had gotten them down to 11.5 and steady. So I tried dosing the neophos and tested following day it went up to 12.7. I’m lost and don’t know what to do. It’s back at 11.5 with zero phosphates and zero nitrates. My setup is a 40 gallon breeder with two clowns a royal gamma and a chromi with a 5 lps and some zoas. Also a clean up crew of snails and hermit crabs. No sump unfortunately no room. So I rely on weekly water changes. My current readings are:
Amm. 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ph 8
Alk 11.5 dkh
Calcium 390
Mag. 1050
Salinity 1.025
Phos. O

Sorry for the long post and I’m not even sure if this is the correct place to post this. Anyways any help would greatly appreciated. Thanks again.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Dunno about the dkh rise. But stop doing water changes. Siphon water into a filter sock and put the water back into the tank.

I found for myself that dosing neophos I had to dose 3x the amount just to keep a reading when testing the following day.

I also used ESV calcium nitrate and dropped my lighting down to just 6hrs a day with main photo period to 2 hrs.

Does the sand bed clear up at night?

 

[Nate Chalk]

You want nitrate and phos . Getting the tank dirty helped me.

I beat it with bottled bacteria, getting the tank dirty, and using lots of mechanical filtration and uv at night.

It was a long process but worked

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Dinos appear with zero no3 and po4. I recommend heavier feedings, less water changes and turning off the refeugium light if you have one

 

[Goozers]

The sand bed does clears a bit. I did forget to mention I was not doing water changes for a couple weeks as I ordered the neophos. Once I started dosing and the dkh increasing is when I started back with the water changes. As of now the Dino’s have significantly gotten better and seem to be on the mend. I guess what I’m getting at is how to correct my zero phosphates and zero nitrates without the alkalinity going up to balance out my numbers correctly. I should have been more specific. Thanks again.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The sand bed does clears a bit. I did forget to mention I was not doing water changes for a couple weeks as I ordered the neophos. Once I started dosing and the dkh increasing is when I started back with the water changes. As of now the Dino’s have significantly gotten better and seem to be on the mend. I guess what I’m getting at is how to correct my zero phosphates and zero nitrates without the alkalinity going up to balance out my numbers correctly. I should have been more specific. Thanks again.

Feed more, or dose ammonia, if the goal is to boost nitrate and not raise alk at all. Phosphate dosing won't impact alk appreciably.

Alternatively, you can do water changes with a low alk mix while you dose nitrate and phosphate.

FYI, 50 ppm of dosed nitrate will, once consumed, add 2.3 dKH of alk.