Is this bleaching, growing or dying?

[Zbutcher]

There are very few situations where it is safe to run nitrates and phosphates around zero and they both involve a ton of throughput and processing/exporting. So feeding a large bioload of fish small portions 8 times a day and exporting like crazy or -- as @bitwise said -- a heavy bacteria & carbon dosing regiment to process a lot of nutrient.

In either case, there is A LOT of nutrient passing through the system on a very consistent basis. It just gets processed/consumed/exported so fast that there is not a lot of residual left to measure. People do it. I think it is cool. I feed at least 3X a day and export pretty hard. 2-5 nitrate and .05 to .08 PO4 with a Hanna.

Given your really cool 3' X 6' footprint, I'd get a school of zebrasomas (plus a One spot foxface! ) and bring on the algae!

Working fish like to work just like working dogs like to work.

Thanks for the input man!

Currently I have a purple tang and white tail bristletooth and a one spot foxface!!

So basically youre saying to feed more?

 

[ScottB]

Thanks for the input man!

Currently I have a purple tang and white tail bristletooth and a one spot foxface!!

So basically youre saying to feed more?

Your welcome. Those are some good working fish for algae control. Give 'em a little something to graze on over time.

Of course you wanna ease into this in terms of aggregate volume over the next month or so. Shifting nutrients have weird consequences if they are too quickly done.

 

[Zbutcher]

Your welcome. Those are some good working fish for algae control. Give 'em a little something to graze on over time.

Of course you wanna ease into this in terms of aggregate volume over the next month or so. Shifting nutrients have weird consequences if they are too quickly done.

Understandable, so essentially my feeding schedule is every second day, so what I may do is switch to daily and leave everything else the same, what do you think?

 

[ScottB]

Understandable, so essentially my feeding schedule is every second day, so what I may do is switch to daily and leave everything else the same, what do you think?

great way to start.

If you don't have a Hanna ULR phosphate I highly recommend one. Yeah, they are kind of a pain to use, but having a good weekly handle on PO4 is equally important to understanding your alkalinity. Otherwise we might be talking again over in the very "Tired" dinoflagellate thread.

I also like the new High range nitrate kit from Hanna.

 

[bitwise]

+1 on what Scott said about dinos. I recommend you test phosphate weekly or so, and make sure it doesn’t bottom out to zero. I keep mine in the .02 - .05 range, but doesn’t have to be exact IME