Live Rock = Turf Algae

[GarrettT]

Thanks for the link

 

[GarrettT]

If the dominant species in your tank was nitrifying bacteria that would be correct, what many people come to realise is that over time heterotrophic bacteria comes to dominate our reef and they become the main species to control ammonia, what happens wend they get limited by removing nitrates or phosphates is that they can’t carry on doing they’re job properly meaning that more ammonia becomes available for photosynthesis organisms to utilise. In your case it will be the turf algae so instead of killing it you are actually giving them more nutrients by limiting nutrients in your system.

Followed your advice and raised my po4. Wow…. What a difference. I saw a huge reduction in turf. I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. Thanks for the contribution.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Followed your advice and raised my po4. Wow…. What a difference. I saw a huge reduction in turf. I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. Thanks for the contribution.

Am glad it worked well for you

 

[Crustaceon]

For those who want a quick fix while waiting for their nutrient levels to adjust: Make two buckets of salt water. Remove a turf-covered rock and scrub it like crazy with an a old tooth brush in the first bucket. Rinse it in the second buck and place it back in the tank.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Turf is one of the few types that Algaefix is worth a shot. You can't keep your phosphates at 0 if you go this route though. It will reduce your algae biodiversity substantially and likely lead to a dino outbreak if you treat without nitrates and phosphates present.

 

[spsick]

I had red turf algae have a decent bloom around the 2 year mark on my system that naturally subsided on its own with no specific action from me.

 

[drawman]

Followed your advice and raised my po4. Wow…. What a difference. I saw a huge reduction in turf. I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. Thanks for the contribution.

I'm curious did you add liquid PO4 or feed differently? I've always been skeptical of those that say higher PO4 reduced their algae as well.

 

[GarrettT]

I'm curious did you add liquid PO4 or feed differently? I've always been skeptical of those that say higher PO4 reduced their algae as well.

Pure po4 directly from a bottle

 

[Garf]

I'm curious did you add liquid PO4 or feed differently? I've always been skeptical of those that say higher PO4 reduced their algae as well.

Yeah it’s rubbish. I’ve grown a scrubber in 1ppm +

 

[GarrettT]

Don’t get me wrong, I added a foxface and a few urchins into the tank as well. That made a big difference, specifically the foxface, but before I added them, I saw a pretty substantial slow down in algae growth after raising po4 a little - say from 0.02 to 0.5ppm. The increase certainly didn’t remove any of the algae, just stopped it from spreading so much.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Don’t get me wrong, I added a foxface and a few urchins into the tank as well. That made a big difference, specifically the foxface, but before I added them, I saw a pretty substantial slow down in algae growth after raising po4 a little - say from 0.02 to 0.5ppm. The increase certainly didn’t remove any of the algae, just stopped it from spreading so much.

This is what is expected to happen in this circumstances, the increase in phosphates will not stop the algae from growing, what it does is to allow for heterotrophic bacteria to assimilate ammonia and other inorganic nutrients that could aid the growth of the algae. Without this bacteria being able to multiply due to the limitations of phosphates the ammonia that they used to assimilate will become available to the algae this is why many observe a even faster growth in nuisance algaes after bottoming out nutrients as the ammonia is naw readily available and the only organisms that will be able to deplete it fast enough is nuisance algaes.
Heterotrophic pelagic bacteria can multiply every 5 to 20 minutes, nitrifying autotrophic bacteria is 16 hours. This means that the bacteria that you will have in the water column is the most effective at removing ammonia from a system and this bacteria can only assimilate nutrients if all 3 forms are present.

 

[Privateye]

This is what is expected to happen in this circumstances, the increase in phosphates will not stop the algae from growing, what it does is to allow for heterotrophic bacteria to assimilate ammonia and other inorganic nutrients that could aid the growth of the algae. Without this bacteria being able to multiply due to the limitations of phosphates the ammonia that they used to assimilate will become available to the algae this is why many observe a even faster growth in nuisance algaes after bottoming out nutrients as the ammonia is naw readily available and the only organisms that will be able to deplete it fast enough is nuisance algaes.
Heterotrophic pelagic bacteria can multiply every 5 to 20 minutes, nitrifying autotrophic bacteria is 16 hours. This means that the bacteria that you will have in the water column is the most effective at removing ammonia from a system and this bacteria can only assimilate nutrients if all 3 forms are present.

Honestly I agree with all of this. That thread about nitrifier replacement is a little sus though IMO. I should probably just post there...What I think should be gathered from it is that it's a much more complicated relationship between consumers of N, C, P, but some things in there were extrapolation. For instance, you wouldn't use sand to measure the nitrifiers in an aquatic system. Relatively little nitrification happens in the sand. Heterotrophs tend to crash the oxygen within the upper layer of sand so there are few nitrifiers below that. It's the reason why sand filters don't do much biofiltration (when filled with sand).

Edit: Op, I'm glad you fixed your problem!

 

[sixty_reefer]

Honestly I agree with all of this. That thread about nitrifier replacement is a little sus though IMO. I should probably just post there...What I think should be gathered from it is that it's a much more complicated relationship between consumers of N, C, P, but some things in there were extrapolation. For instance, you wouldn't use sand to measure the nitrifiers in an aquatic system. Relatively little nitrification happens in the sand. Heterotrophs tend to crash the oxygen within the upper layer of sand so there are few nitrifiers below that. It's the reason why sand filters don't do much biofiltration (when filled with sand).

Edit: Op, I'm glad you fixed your problem!

Little nitrifying tends to happen in the sand bed aquabiomics was able to identify this trough testing, there is another chap that made a series of studies in 2012 that confirmed also that there is plenty of pelagic bacteria removed via skimmer, from the top of my head I believe the number of floating bacteria gets reduced by 10 fold this will also be affecting the reduction of ammonia in a display little nitrifying bacteria and reduction of pelagic bacteria via skimmer or limitation will increase the availability of ammonia for example.

 

[Privateye]

Little nitrifying tends to happen in the sand bed aquabiomics was able to identify this trough testing, there is another chap that made a series of studies in 2012 that confirmed also that there is plenty of pelagic bacteria removed via skimmer, from the top of my head I believe the number of floating bacteria gets reduced by 10 fold this will also be affecting the reduction of ammonia in a display little nitrifying bacteria and reduction of pelagic bacteria via skimmer or limitation will increase the availability of ammonia for example.

Totally. Not to mention a UV sterilizer!