Lower Phos but raise Nitrates

brrdawg · Nov 18, 2022

Hey everyone. I have been battling either cyano or Dino’s for the past month and a half. I have lost 2 fish, no corals though at this point but have a few angry ones. My phosphates are at .09 and nitrates at .8 according to Hanna. Alk is 8.8 and calc is 430. Salinity is 1.026. I also have some GHA as well as possibly some Bryopsis. So far the past month and a half I have been doing regular water changes as well as cleaning off as much GHA as possible and siphoning sand bed and switching out filter socks everyday and dosing Microbacter7 lightly. I have been using Phosguard to attempt to lower phosphates but doesn’t seem to be working. I feel like I am spending so much time with no real change. Should I dose some neonitro? Just not sure the right approach to lowering phosphates while raising nitrates. Any help would be great. I feel like I am going crazy.

TokenReefer · Nov 18, 2022

How's the flow in the tank?

brrdawg · Nov 18, 2022

I have 2 mp-10s on either side of a reefer e-170 set at 70 and 65% on reef crest. I do feel like there is tons of gunk that kicks up on the rocks everyday when I take the Turkey baster to it. Also I recently installed a ecotech s2 return pump at about 40 %.

brrdawg · Nov 18, 2022

Filter socks are always dirty and clean those out daily. Using the mesh type.

Neoma369 · Nov 18, 2022

brrdawg said:
Hey everyone. I have been battling either cyano or Dino’s for the past month and a half. I have lost 2 fish, no corals though at this point but have a few angry ones. My phosphates are at .09 and nitrates at .8 according to Hanna. Alk is 8.8 and calc is 430. Salinity is 1.026. I also have some GHA as well as possibly some Bryopsis. So far the past month and a half I have been doing regular water changes as well as cleaning off as much GHA as possible and siphoning sand bed and switching out filter socks everyday and dosing Microbacter7 lightly. I have been using Phosguard to attempt to lower phosphates but doesn’t seem to be working. I feel like I am spending so much time with no real change. Should I dose some neonitro? Just not sure the right approach to lowering phosphates while raising nitrates. Any help would be great. I feel like I am going crazy.

TokenReefer · Nov 18, 2022

Hmm. I have no xp with those to be fair but they are the smaller size mp... I found dialing in flow so that less settles (within reason, cuc has to eat as well

) really helps. I'll let you make a decision there..

One suggestion though, while you're battling the dinos, use felt (lower micron) filter socks. The mesh trap larger particles but lots is slipping through those holes; you may find better success with removal with felt or even stuffing those socks full of filter floss

brrdawg · Nov 18, 2022

Yeah I am using the felt, just forgot the name. I think you are right on flow. Yeah the mp-10s are the smallest ecotech pump. I think maybe my return pump is too high. I am going to turn it down a little and see if that will help. Thanks for the advice. I love reefing but it has been a battle lately.

Neoma369 · Nov 18, 2022

I hate that you are going through it, I went through the same 3 years ago, seems like you need to check more parameters -in my opinion. I found, by accident that if mag, alk, cal are in range, then your nitrates need to go up to have a closer number to the phos. I would also recommend cleaning off as much plague as possible and siphoning it out as you go. I took my filter socks out and siphoned most of the water through that, -returning the water from a 5 gl bucket- I added a power head and hose to return the water as I went along.
In my case, I had magnesium imbalance and zero phos

I added half the dose of the phos increase and a little mag. I changed the filter socks out 3-4 times a day for the next 3 weeks. Now whenever I get a little red, a little brown- I order a big jar of bugs-(pods) and change up the flow direction- seems to be the solution for me!

brrdawg · Nov 18, 2022

So I got to thinking about flow with TokenReefer talking about that and thought I would check by return pumps flow. I set it at 40% as its oversized for my tank and lo and behold it was at 100%. I am wondering if that may be part of the issue. Not having proper filtration happening would definitely raise phosphates. Thank you all for your help. I have felt like I am fighting a losing battle.

rhostam · Nov 18, 2022

brrdawg said:
So I got to thinking about flow with TokenReefer talking about that and thought I would check by return pumps flow. I set it at 40% as its oversized for my tank and lo and behold it was at 100%. I am wondering if that may be part of the issue. Not having proper filtration happening would definitely raise phosphates. Thank you all for your help. I have felt like I am fighting a losing battle.

Please keep us informed. I am sorry to piggyback your post, OP. I'm having similar issues and am now at my wit's end - I hope we'll find something we both need.

I've been battling high PO4 and low NO3 for almost a year now after a terrible feeding mistake (that went on for weeks). GHA is out of control. Dinos go away at night and return during the day. I've tried most of the remedies suggested over longer periods not to shock the system, but I can't get the tank back to balance. I've been reading and watching anything I can. Unlike you, I have lost several of my favorite corals during the highest of the PO4 periods. My rocks soaked up a bunch of PO4 and are still leeching it back out since I've addressed the feed issue and started trying to pull it out of the water. I am still fighting it and the low NO3. I feed dehydrated foods (mostly Reef Jerky blended with TDO and algae pellets). But am now hesitant to change/introduce anything since I'm unsure how to proceed.

A few things off the top of my head I've tried over this period with a "slow and steady" approach:

Reduced feeding
Introduced fleece filters
Introduced refugium macroalgae
Introduced and replaced TWICE two CUC sized for a 250-gallon tank (hundreds of snails/crabs per order)
- Most snails keep dying off/being eaten with no clear sign of a predator. I've tried moving the medium/large hermits to the refugium, so I'm assuming they're being poisoned/knocked over/died, and crabs eat remains.
- No fish casualties.
Flow hasn't changed between the golden period of my tank and its present state. Increasing flow at this point would annoy my LPS tank inhabitants and sand, but I'm open to it. I think the pumps could use some cleaning as I noticed dinos in areas of the tank where it never had a foothold before.
I introduced a 40 W Pentair UV - flow rate of 650 GPH may be too low, though.
I increased the tank temperature to 84 degrees over a week with zero observable impact.
- I've since reduced it to 81 degrees since most inhabitants seem happiest at this temperature.
I removed as much of the GHA as possible from DP and refugium.
I tried blackouts for three days. That made the dinos disappear for up to a week. It also appeared to have weekend the GHA as I began to detach and allow urchins to make some headway.
I began dosing nitrate and MB7.
The last three items seemed to help. The GHA wasn't growing for about two weeks, and the remaining snails and urchins were mowing what was left down. GHA was getting caught in the filtration (fleece) and even the weirs of the overflow. I removed that manually.

What else I've done and happenings since the last point above:

I eased up on dosing MB7 and nitrates, but PO4 wouldn't go down.
I finally introduced TM Elimi-Phos and began manual dosing. That brought down PO4 to lower levels consistently and is now in the stage of lower dosage and monitoring, and repeated PO4 testing.
Cyano has returned.
GHA is regrowing.
I plan on doing the following this weekend
- round of GHA regrowth removal
- siphon sandbed
- clean out refugium as my beautiful macro and glass are now being covered in some green dusty-like algae - I think it is decaying GHA, except that it is not easy to shake/wash off.

Should I:

Resume dosing Neo Nitro?
- Should I consider any specific brands/foods instead of my dehydrated/pellets?
  - I do feed frozen PE Mysis on occasion.
  - I'd rather not have to dose nitrates.
Resume dosing MB7?
Enable more bypass for fleece rollers (w or w/o food changes above)?
Put skimmer on a schedule rather than always-on (except during feeding/maintenance/MB7/ TM-EP dosing)?

My most recent (and now typical) are undetectable nitrates and PO4 of about 0.25 (from the all-time high of 0.74 and an average of 0.45 during the sustained peak periods).

I welcome a recommendation for new NO3 test kits. I use both Hanna PO4 (regular/ULR) testers. I understand that my "low" NO4 may be misleading due to the GHA that may be uptaking it all.

I'm not sure what else to do. But at this point, I'm ready to remove every coral and anemone I can and replace all the rock/sand with new, clean, cured rock and sand. I'm reluctant to do this because we're planning on selling our home, and that would be a big undertaking that I could do if we do buy a new home in the spring.

I've attached morning and evening pictures from this week.

Cheers folk and thanks for reading:

TokenReefer · Nov 18, 2022

Manual removal trumps everything imo. Got a tree in your yard you don't want? Sure you could poison it etc but cut it down and haul it away and it's gone in one day. Dumb analogy... Does that make sense? Lol.

Unfortunately it never seems to be narrowed down to a single approach as people try multiple things and then in congruence they see results.

All I can say is what I would do do faced with your situation (and I was... And may be again).

Pumps off
Manually remove the algae from the rocks
Blow off rocks
Vacuum the top layer of sand (and whatever clumps of sand) into a filter sock in a bucket
Blow off the rocks
Vacuum the water column again into sock in bucket
Return the filtered bucket water to the tank
Turn on return pump (higher than normal) to move water through socks
After about an hour, change socks

Should look batter already obviously

Dial in flow to move stuff (I. E. the main rockwork should not be able to collect heavy food because of the flow pattern imo). You have a large tank so easier said than done I know...

Repeat this exact process if not the very next day, the day after. Until... Things change. Coral starts taking over nutrient uptake (very simplified sorry)...

I just can't see how you do not win this way...

Pia? %100!

brrdawg · Nov 19, 2022

TokenReefer that is solid advice. I have done a lot of those things. Usually only during water changes. I will just keep grinding and taking it day by day and do as much manual work as I can. I totally agree with your philosophy and thanks for taking the time to write me. I already found an issue when you talked about flow earlier….I had my return pump up almost full blast which is way over what it should be…40%. So that should be a good start to get flow figure out. I really appreciate your time and help!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 19, 2022

If the problem is dinos, I do not recommend reducing nutrients. I'd raise the nitrate.

If the problem is cyano, I wouldn't focus on nutrients to get rid of it when they are already in the range you are, but flow, manual removal, and reducing organics.

Panky · Dec 1, 2022

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
If the problem is dinos, I do not recommend reducing nutrients. I'd raise the nitrate.

If the problem is cyano, I wouldn't focus on nutrients to get rid of it when they are already in the range you are, but flow, manual removal, and reducing organics.

What’s the best way to raise nitrates