High nitrates but everything is looking good

[Vinh]

My tank is still relatively new (2 month stage) and my nitrates have consistently hover around 5-10. I recently did a full cleaning of the tank and measured some water params to see where I'm at. I was surprised to find my nitrates had spiked to 40. I've read nitrates should be low but not zero to keep corals happy. However, right now my corals (and a pair of clowns) look better than ever. I suspect the rise in nitrates is due to the leftover food that fish are not eating. I don't think I'm over feeding but my clowns seem to be picky and leave a decent amount uneaten. I suppose technically that's over feeding. I have a small CUC and want to keep it that way so I've adjusted how I feed so there's less leftover food (at least less big chunks of food).

Q1: Should I do a couple larger water changes to get nitrates back down to 5-10 or should I leave it be since everything seems to be happy?

Q2: As you may guess I'm still struggling with a bit of hair algae most likely due to the higher nitrates. Then again, I'm also still in the new tank stage. When someone posts a problem with hair algae often times the response is that the tank is still going through the new tank syndrome stage. Approximately how long is a tank considered new? 3 months? 6 months? 1 year?

 

[brandon429]

That's not my take on GHA at all, but then again im tasked with maintaining 120 pages of rolling threads to prove it so my motivations are different. Its true that lower nutrients can help, might help GHA, but if that was the universal cause none of us would have GHA because we'd just use biopellets or carbon dosing and could be done with it all.

There are thousands of tanks with GHA issues within 2 mos or after 10 years I work on, and catalogued in the threads, that had wonderful nutrient levels in spec before the outbreak. Nutrients can be associated with algae, but not always, or these problem tanks wouldn't exist and the 120 page rolling threads would cease being needed. Regarding your GHA, that's fixable now, or later, independent of nutrients, just choose when.

Regarding the nitrates this is my take:
-if this is an api reading, we don't know what the levels are but have a general guess, they range greatly but are general indicators. Stating this simply because I wouldn't seek to attain any target levels off API, causes wild goose chases. if you have a target in mind use salifert to gauge so the reading isn't disputed. if this isn't api, disregard.
-my whole systems is always above 10 with no problems, however high you want to limit things ranges. im algae free even if it jumps to 20 and phosphate triples, though.

everyone would agree that keeping nutrients in check is a big part of algae control, I piped in just to point out we can still fix it even if nutrient controls don't for you.