I have a 40b with 20l sump about 60 lbs of live rock, a reef octopus 110 classic, I use drain sleeves as filter socks that get changed out about twice a week and 5 fish ( 2 small clowns 2 small anthias and a mandarin). I feed lrs reef frenzy once a day but use to feed twice a day but stopped a month ago. I was battling dinos for over a year and read the dino thread so I let my tank do it's thing. Stopped doing so many water changes, stopped dosing amino acids and nitrates went up to 40 ppm and phosphate stayed at zero. Since the dinos disappeared cyano has taken its place. I've read that cyano can give you a false reading of zero for phosphate. I use with salifert test kit for phosphate. I was thinking maybe some kind of carbon dosing but am afraid of dinos returning because of the zero phosphate reading. Can someone give me some advice on my next course of action.
Help me correct no3 and po4 level please
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Tokash23
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How old is your tank? I have the same setup and also have a wicked cyano outbreak but i kind of chalked mine up to new tank syndrome since it is only about 5 months salty.
Go back to doing water changes. For me, dinos result from low nitrates and having higher phosphates. Get the nitrates down to 5 ppm, certainly under 10 ppm. See how the tank looks then.
You haven't mentioned any coral in your post. If you have no corals, you only need to keep nitrates low enough to not hurt the fish and have the tank look nice. In that case, anything under 20 is probably fine, but 10 or lower is best for most critters.
You haven't mentioned any coral in your post. If you have no corals, you only need to keep nitrates low enough to not hurt the fish and have the tank look nice. In that case, anything under 20 is probably fine, but 10 or lower is best for most critters.
If you have porous live rock and enough sand, your tank will eventually develop enough anoxic bacteria to handle the N on it's own. However, this takes some time and any manual interference that you did in the meantime will need to be repaid now with even more time. Is your rock good, porous rock? Was it from the ocean or dead/dry? Is it releasing terrestrial phosphates into your tank? Also, do you have sand - if so, how deep is it?
There are solutions to all of this, but the root cause needs to be understood for the best solution and not just temporary interference.
In any case, get back on your water changes. They are the single most best thing that you can do for any tank and will work with any solution.
There are solutions to all of this, but the root cause needs to be understood for the best solution and not just temporary interference.
In any case, get back on your water changes. They are the single most best thing that you can do for any tank and will work with any solution.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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This is a crazy myth.
No organism in a reef tank gives a false reading on any chemical kit.
People confuse cause and effect. Lots of growing algae (including cyano) takes up lots of phosphate to grow and can lead to low phosphate levels. There's nothing false about it, except their mistaken assumption that it takes a big reading of nutrients to allow algae to grow rapidly.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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I discuss the many good ways to reduce nitrate and phosphate in these articles:
Phosphate In The Reef Aquarium
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/?p=3184
Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/nitrate-in-the-reef-aquarium
Phosphate In The Reef Aquarium
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/?p=3184
Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION
https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/nitrate-in-the-reef-aquarium
Idk what type of rock it is but I got it from my buddies reef tank he downsized and I picked it up from him so I'm not sure if how to text if they are leaching out anything. But they were in an established reef for some time and he didn't have any problems. I will start doing bigger watch changes like I use to
