Help with nutrient imbalance

[BriansBrain]

My reef is still young at 13 months and I’ve been dealing with the headaches of starting from dry rock (pukani, Fiji, Tonga) from my old system. Nutrients have ALWAYS been near zero or undetectable in the water column. Nitrate 0-3 and phosphate 0-0.01. With that, I’ve still had so many ugly stages I’ve lost count. I even had dino growing on top of turf algae.

I installed a UV a few months ago and the algaes and uglies went away but now coming back. Maybe from its own die off?

Corals include Lps which are doing ok but not growing. Sps are pale and not growing either. For the past month I have been feeding heavily 2x/day frozen, 2x/day pellets on AFS. Feeding coral 2-3x/week reef chili, reef roofs and aminos. Not raising phosphate at all. I even dosed neophos 3x in the past three days and not rising. Just makes me nervous of dumping that much food and raw phosphorus into my tank.

Now my nutrients are a bit lopsided with 10-15 nitrates and 0 phosphate

current parameters

No3 10
PO4 0
Alk 8.4
Cal 430
Mg 1440

 

[RMS18]

Hey there, from my experience here's what I'd do it I was going through that again. Keep the back wall and rock areas as clean as you can. This will prevent the algea you have growing from sucking out the nutrients before you corals and get them. I'd dose some po4 target .04-.05 for now. Test po4 daily and dose daily accordingly. I'd stay away from dumping in food to increase, I've found it leads to issues like cyano and more detritus. The liquid n03 and po4 will skip the detritus stage. Keep the big 3 stable and give the tank some time to come back into balance. Stay away from bacterias and vibrant. Let the tank do it's thing. If you do not have any live rock you can add some to your sump where there is no light. I believe LR is a huge key to early one success. Stay away from chemiclean also. Just keep up with weekly w/c and sand syphoning.

 

[BriansBrain]

Hey there, from my experience here's what I'd do it I was going through that again. Keep the back wall and rock areas as clean as you can. This will prevent the algea you have growing from sucking out the nutrients before you corals and get them. I'd dose some po4 target .04-.05 for now. Test po4 daily and dose daily accordingly. I'd stay away from dumping in food to increase, I've found it leads to issues like cyano and more detritus. The liquid n03 and po4 will skip the detritus stage. Keep the big 3 stable and give the tank some time to come back into balance. Stay away from bacterias and vibrant. Let the tank do it's thing. If you do not have any live rock you can add some to your sump where there is no light. I believe LR is a huge key to early one success. Stay away from chemiclean also. Just keep up with weekly w/c and sand syphoning.

Thanks for your input! I’ll definitely scrape the back wall and keep it clean. It’s probably acting like an algae scrubber. Also continue to manually remove from the rock.

I was dosing microbactor7 as it instructed on the NeoPhos bottle, but that sounded so counterintuitive lol. So I’ll stop that and I’ll also turn the skimmer and UV back on (off from dosing bacteria).

Yea setting up a tank with dry rock is much more frustrating than ordering ocean cured live rock like you used to be able to.

 

[BriansBrain]

i also run an algae scrubber, but the lights are only on for 2 hours at night. Not much is growing on the mesh. Do you think if I would turn the photo period to 4 hours it would outcompete the algae in the tank? But then it would also lower my PO4 too idk

 

[arking_mark]

My reef is still young at 13 months and I’ve been dealing with the headaches of starting from dry rock (pukani, Fiji, Tonga) from my old system. Nutrients have ALWAYS been near zero or undetectable in the water column. Nitrate 0-3 and phosphate 0-0.01. With that, I’ve still had so many ugly stages I’ve lost count. I even had dino growing on top of turf algae.

I installed a UV a few months ago and the algaes and uglies went away but now coming back. Maybe from its own die off?

Corals include Lps which are doing ok but not growing. Sps are pale and not growing either. For the past month I have been feeding heavily 2x/day frozen, 2x/day pellets on AFS. Feeding coral 2-3x/week reef chili, reef roofs and aminos. Not raising phosphate at all. I even dosed neophos 3x in the past three days and not rising. Just makes me nervous of dumping that much food and raw phosphorus into my tank.

Now my nutrients are a bit lopsided with 10-15 nitrates and 0 phosphate

current parameters

No3 10
PO4 0
Alk 8.4
Cal 430
Mg 1440

I'm not sure you're having a nutrient imbalance problem. Seems like your growing nuisance algae well which would indicate sufficient nutrients.

A couple questions:
1. Do you run a refugium?
2. Do you have large enough CUC?
3. Do you have sand shifters or something to keep your sand clean?

My thoughts are that you may not have sufficient ways to keep the nuisance stuff away.

 

[BriansBrain]

I'm not sure you're having a nutrient imbalance problem. Seems like your growing nuisance algae well which would indicate sufficient nutrients.

A couple questions:
1. Do you run a refugium?
2. Do you have large enough CUC?
3. Do you have sand shifters or something to keep your sand clean?

My thoughts are that you may not have sufficient ways to keep the nuisance stuff away.

The tank is a 5’ 120gal. I run an algae scrubber. There are two tangs, 2 tuxedo and 1 pincushion urchins, 2 emerald crabs, a couple hundred trochus snails (started with 5 and they multiplied), regular and dwarf ceriths, and a few nassarius. I vac the sand weekly. I am planning on a sifter goby.

I don’t really understand why when my algae was completely gone for a month or two, I was still testing 0-0.01 PO4

 

[Spare time]

Just keep dosing neophos. Don't add microbacter7. I don't know why they even say to do that as it helps to defeat the purpose of dosing phosphate.

If the algae coming back is dinos, that would make sense given 0 phosphate.

 

[arking_mark]

The tank is a 5’ 120gal. I run an algae scrubber. There are two tangs, 2 tuxedo and 1 pincushion urchins, 2 emerald crabs, a couple hundred trochus snails (started with 5 and they multiplied), regular and dwarf ceriths, and a few nassarius. I vac the sand weekly. I am planning on a sifter goby.

I don’t really understand why when my algae was completely gone for a month or two, I was still testing 0-0.01 PO4

Interesting. My old tank was running around .87ppm Phosphate with no real nuisance algae or need to clean the glass. My Nitrates ran at about 25ppm.

My new tank which is only 3 months old is running at .07ppm Phosphate and about 25ppm Nitrates...and I still barely need to clean the glass. I'm pretty sure I'll go through an ugly phase soon.

The point I'm making is that it still may not be a nutrient problem. People are successful with ULN and higher nutrient tanks. I think the trick to success is to outcompete the stuff you don't want. It seems like your CUC should be capable of doing that.

Many people have turned to good bacteria to help outcompete the nuisance algae. Dr. Tims and others may be of some use to you. I had success with Vibrant for taking care of a small GHA outbreak that I had seven months ago. It's a combo of bacteria, amino acids, and carbon dosing.

You can also starve out your nuisance algae with a carbon dosing solution like Nyos Zero. With regards to your corals, as long as your feeding your fish and broadcast feeding your corals, they should be fine.

 

[ReefLaw]

I would add more fish to get your nutrients up

 

[BriansBrain]

The tank is a 5’ 120gal. I run an algae scrubber. There are two tangs, 2 tuxedo and 1 pincushion urchins, 2 emerald crabs, a couple hundred trochus snails (started with 5 and they multiplied), regular and dwarf ceriths, and a few nassarius. I vac the sand weekly. I am planning on a sifter goby.

I don’t really understand why when my algae was completely gone for a month or two, I was still testing 0-

Interesting. My old tank was running around .87ppm Phosphate with no real nuisance algae or need to clean the glass. My Nitrates ran at about 25ppm.

My new tank which is only 3 months old is running at .07ppm Phosphate and about 25ppm Nitrates...and I still barely need to clean the glass. I'm pretty sure I'll go through an ugly phase soon.

The point I'm making is that it still may not be a nutrient problem. People are successful with ULN and higher nutrient tanks. I think the trick to success is to outcompete the stuff you don't want. It seems like your CUC should be capable of doing that.

Many people have turned to good bacteria to help outcompete the nuisance algae. Dr. Tims and others may be of some use to you. I had success with Vibrant for taking care of a small GHA outbreak that I had seven months ago. It's a combo of bacteria, amino acids, and carbon dosing.

You can also starve out your nuisance algae with a carbon dosing solution like Nyos Zero. With regards to your corals, as long as your feeding your fish and broadcast feeding your corals, they should be fine.

I’ve have a theory that since my rock with the majority (85%) stubborn algae is on pukani rock, it is/has been leaching phosphate and the algae is absorbing it before it is released into the water column. That is, however, always a highly debatable subject

 

[homer1475]

Dry pukani is loaded with phosphates. 100% proven.

 

[BriansBrain]

Interesting. My old tank was running around .87ppm Phosphate with no real nuisance algae or need to clean the glass. My Nitrates ran at about 25ppm.

My new tank which is only 3 months old is running at .07ppm Phosphate and about 25ppm Nitrates...and I still barely need to clean the glass. I'm pretty sure I'll go through an ugly phase soon.

The point I'm making is that it still may not be a nutrient problem. People are successful with ULN and higher nutrient tanks. I think the trick to success is to outcompete the stuff you don't want. It seems like your CUC should be capable of doing that.

Many people have turned to good bacteria to help outcompete the nuisance algae. Dr. Tims and others may be of some use to you. I had success with Vibrant for taking care of a small GHA outbreak that I had seven months ago. It's a combo of bacteria, amino acids, and carbon dosing.

You can also starve out your nuisance algae with a carbon dosing solution like Nyos Zero. With regards to your corals, as long as your feeding your fish and broadcast feeding your corals, they should be fine.

Also, though I do have some stubborn spots of turf algae on a few spot of pukani, I wouldn’t think that relatively small bit of algae would completely deplete my phosphate levels to zero in the entire system which is my main discussion

 

[BriansBrain]

Dry pukani is loaded with phosphates. 100% proven.

I did cure it but clearly not well enough. I rushed to get ready for a frag swap. If this is the culprit, I’ve been paying for it dearly the past 12 months lol

 

[homer1475]

As the phosphates leach out of the pukani, the algae will most certainly suck it up leaving 0 on tests(basically no excess in the water column).

 

[homer1475]

I did cure it but clearly not well enough. I rushed to get ready for a frag swap. If this is the culprit, I’ve been paying for it dearly the past 12 months lol

Made the same mistake. I eventually ripped it all out, replaced with actual live rock. Never got past the ugly stage almost 2 years later.

I then gave it to a friend after an acid wash. He hasn't had any issues with it. I added some back into my display after the acid, and haven't had an issue either. Just have to make sure it's 100% leached out.

 

[BriansBrain]

As the phosphates leach out of the pukani, the algae will most certainly suck it up leaving 0 on tests(basically no excess in the water column).

This a small example of this pukani covered in it and was only 4 months ago. Came along way I think. Obviously tested out at 0 nutrients. Just curious why when there are only a couple small stubborn spots I’m still at 0 phosphate

 

[homer1475]

Is that a current pic, or do you have one?

Thats exactly what my pukani looked like. absolutely infested wherever the light hits it. Where theres no light, nothing. Even still, where the light hits it, full of coralline, where no light, still white rock.

 

[BriansBrain]

Is that a current pic, or do you have one?

Thats exactly what my pukani looked like. absolutely infested wherever the light hits it. Where theres no light, nothing. Even still, where the light hits it, full of coralline, where no light, still white rock.

The picture in my opening post is current as of last night and the picture from the last reply was from October. I did a rescape in December, so it looks different

 

[arking_mark]

Also, though I do have some stubborn spots of turf algae on a few spot of pukani, I wouldn’t think that relatively small bit of algae would completely deplete my phosphate levels to zero in the entire system which is my main discussion

So if I understand correctly, you want to boost nutrients (Phosphate & Nitrate) to increase your coral growth?

I'll assume lighting (par) and flow are appropriate for the specific corals and you are spot feeding and broadcast feeding appropriately.

What is your water change and dosing regiment? Have you done an ICP test to see if you have any parameters way off? These may contribute more to you coral growth then the Phosphate and Nitrate.

One reason you may not see an increase in Phosphate is that your rock and substrate can act like a sponge...hence why they can leach back in the future.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’ve have a theory that since my rock with the majority (85%) stubborn algae is on pukani rock, it is/has been leaching phosphate and the algae is absorbing it before it is released into the water column. That is, however, always a highly debatable subject

That is certainly a reasonable hypothesis.