Feed more or less?

[discostew]

Hey all,

i have a fish,softy and lps tank about 4 months old. Clean up crew as well. Have some small patches of gha that comes and goes. CUC gets it and I’ll do manual removal. It’s very minor. I do notice for the past month my nitrates have been 0. No Dino’s that i can tell. I feel like i feed pretty heavy handed with flakes, pellets and mysis. The CUC gets all the scraps. With small gha and some gha that bugs my pipe organs and gonis. Should i be feeding less as the gha is using the nitrate or should i be feeding more? Also do feed roids like 1x per week and phyto 2-3 times.

 

[frankny]

i will put urchins to clean gha and feed more to gain no3 and po4, cuz dino cause by zero nutrreits, it's nightmare that you really want to avoid

 

[damsels are not mean]

nah just keep it up eventually the good guys win if you keep doing what you are doing

 

[damsels are not mean]

i will put urchins to clean gha and feed more to gain no3 and po4, cuz dino cause by zero nutrreits, it's nightmare that you really want to avoid

not really physically possible for algae blooms to be cause by a lack of nutrients.

 

[discostew]

nah just keep it up eventually the good guys win if you keep doing what you are doing

To clarify, keep Feeding heavy?

 

[damsels are not mean]

To clarify, keep Feeding heavy?

Yes plus removing algae. You want to create an environment that selects for non-nuissance biofilms and you do that by pressuring the stuff you don't like until other things outcompete or simply eat it.

 

[wwcgroupie]

What are your po4 btw

 

[Ricox]

I would just feed more. Are you using anything like GFO in your filtration cause you could take that out instead?

 

[JebronLames]

Hey all,

i have a fish,softy and lps tank about 4 months old. Clean up crew as well. Have some small patches of gha that comes and goes. CUC gets it and I’ll do manual removal. It’s very minor. I do notice for the past month my nitrates have been 0. No Dino’s that i can tell. I feel like i feed pretty heavy handed with flakes, pellets and mysis. The CUC gets all the scraps. With small gha and some gha that bugs my pipe organs and gonis. Should i be feeding less as the gha is using the nitrate or should i be feeding more? Also do feed roids like 1x per week and phyto 2-3 times.

From my experience, you shouldn't feed more to increase nitrate. Why? Because when you are feeding more you add BOTH nitrate and phosphate. Pellets & flakes are rich in phosphate, Reef Roids is even higher phosphate. Your tank is already in an out of balance nutrients.

My tank got the same issue as yours. zero nitrate, and high phosphate = GHA bloom. If you're using non ULR phosphate test kit like Hanna, your phosphate test kit probably reads 0 (false reading)

There are a few ways to fix this issue
1. Natural way. If you have a sump (with refugium) or macro algae reactor or ATS (algae turf scrubber) to out compete the GHA in display tank you can dose nitrate while manually removing the GHA in display tank. Pull out the live rock covered with GHA, scrub with a toothbrush, and then rinse with saltwater before putting them back in your aquarium. You might have to do this more than once (until the macro algae out compete the GHA in display tank. I cranked up my refugium light up to 16 hours / day. Took me about 1-2 weeks to stop the GHA bloom in my display tank and let my refugium out compete the nuisance algae. I never let my nitrate reach 0 anymore after this. Learned my mistake ^_^

2. Chemical way. If you don't have a refugium or anything to out compete the GHA you need to bring down the phosphate level with GFO (preferably between 0.06 - 0.1 ppm) while manually remove the GHA out of your tank.

PS : You can use nitrate in a bottle products to add nitrate, but I prefer to use James Planted Tank Calculator

 

[discostew]

From my experience, you shouldn't feed more to increase nitrate. Why? Because when you are feeding more you add BOTH nitrate and phosphate. Pellets & flakes are rich in phosphate, Reef Roids is even higher phosphate. Your tank is already in an out of balance nutrients.

My tank got the same issue as yours. zero nitrate, and high phosphate = GHA bloom. If you're using non ULR phosphate test kit like Hanna, your phosphate test kit probably reads 0 (false reading)

There are a few ways to fix this issue
1. Natural way. If you have a sump (with refugium) or macro algae reactor or ATS (algae turf scrubber) to out compete the GHA in display tank you can dose nitrate while manually removing the GHA in display tank. Pull out the live rock covered with GHA, scrub with a toothbrush, and then rinse with saltwater before putting them back in your aquarium. You might have to do this more than once (until the macro algae out compete the GHA in display tank. I cranked up my refugium light up to 16 hours / day. Took me about 1-2 weeks to stop the GHA bloom in my display tank and let my refugium out compete the nuisance algae. I never let my nitrate reach 0 anymore after this. Learned my mistake ^_^

2. Chemical way. If you don't have a refugium or anything to out compete the GHA you need to bring down the phosphate level with GFO (preferably between 0.06 - 0.1 ppm) while manually remove the GHA out of your tank.

PS : You can use nitrate in a bottle products to add nitrate, but I prefer to use James Planted Tank Calculator

Thanks. I’m during chrmipure blue. I can switch to elite. Can’t really remove the rock. No sump. It’s an aio.