Low Nutrients after NOPOX dilemma

[Auto-pilot]

Thanks for the reply.

Should I dose a little more fluconazle? I went 3-4 days with my skimmer on but dialed all the way down as to not skim anything out of the water and turned it back on to skim as people were saying that I would have excess nutrients buildup from the die-off.

Also, I assume no water changes during this time also?

I feel like water changes are not a very good form of nutirent control. If your nitrates and phosphates spike it can kill coral fast and it's really hard on sensitive coral to do large water changes. Fish don't mind as much. I'd keep your skimmer going and keep dosing while getting rid of alge. Make sure you don't put anything out of balance and don't rush it. Be patient and test nutrients throughout prossess. If anything starts going wrong stop and wait for the tank to settle down before adding anything.

 

[CC13]

I feel like water changes are not a very good form of nutirent control. If your nitrates and phosphates spike it can kill coral fast and it's really hard on sensitive coral to do large water changes. Fish don't mind as much. I'd keep your skimmer going and keep dosing while getting rid of alge. Make sure you don't put anything out of balance and don't rush it. Be patient and test nutrients throughout prossess. If anything starts going wrong stop and wait for the tank to settle down before adding anything.

Thanks for the reply.

How do I dose more Flocuzanole? I know how much I dosed originally but now after 2 weeks and some skimming how can I know how much to dose at this point?

 

[Auto-pilot]

Ive only used it once for bryopsis. It didn't kill my hair alge. mabe dose half and watch for any negative effects

 

[Auto-pilot]

When I used it I mixed it and used a pipet to inject it I into any bryopsis and it killed most of it. Every once in a while it comes back but I'll clean it up with a little peroxide. I spot treat and it's worked for me so far

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Five months ago I dosed NO-PO4X to my Red Sea 170 to get nitrates down to within the 5ppm range to help with some algae issues. Followed dosing instructions and in no time, much faster than expected, my nitrates were down below 1. Phosphate have always been unreadable on the hanna low range but I figured there was some there anyway.

Naturally corals didn't look happy so I stopped nopox thinking that it would rise to around 5ppm where I could maintain it at that level. Nitrates have stayed at 1ppm for a couple months now with no carbon dosing at all even after feeding a bit more than usual.

The good news is that corals seem really happy, especially the sps which are beginning to color up and putting on some good growth. Bad news is that algae is also really happy. I'm assuming the green hair algae is consuming a lot of nutrients so my dilemma is how to get rid of the hair algae since lowering the nutrients even further isn't an option without making my corals angry.

Ideas?

IMO, the best way to deal with algae is to use organisms that eat it. In a 170, you have great options, such as rabbitfish or foxface.

 

[roberthu526]

Thanks for the reply.

Should I dose a little more fluconazle? I went 3-4 days with my skimmer on but dialed all the way down as to not skim anything out of the water and turned it back on to skim as people were saying that I would have excess nutrients buildup from the die-off.

Also, I assume no water changes during this time also?

I usually turn the skimmer on after three days or so then do a water change after a month. I only had to dose a second time once and I did it after a 20% water change.

 

[CC13]

IMO, the best way to deal with algae is to use organisms that eat it. In a 170, you have great options, such as rabbitfish or foxface.

Hi Randy,

To jump in on this, I have 3 tangs and foxface that are considered algae eaters and they won’t touch this stuff. I tried to cut back in feedings slightly to try and get them a little hungrier so they would eat the algae but they still do not, they just aggressive with each other.

Any advice? What about dosing Dr. Tim’s?

 

[jhatfield]

IMO, the best way to deal with algae is to use organisms that eat it. In a 170, you have great options, such as rabbitfish or foxface.

Sorry, this is a RS 170 litre, ~40gal with rock and sand so algae eating fish are a no go. I did try a blenny a while back but he ignored the algae and went straight for the acropora. This tank seems a bit small for a tang IMO. The majority of the algae eating inverts I've had are great for film algae and maybe GHA in the earliest stages but once it gets established it's only the urchin and large mexican turbos that munch on it. My problem with the pincushion urchin is that he strips even coraline algae leaving a clean white canvas GHA.

I did try Vibrant at one point during a previous outbreak and it seemed to kill off the inverts before I saw any effect on the GHA. It ultimately did seem to help but it seems like there is a toxic element somewhere that I'd like to avoid.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Oh, sorry, thought it was 170 gallons. lol I agree the options are limited in a smaller tank.