Massive drop off in nitrates, phosphates, alkalinity, and calcium

CamGG · Aug 5, 2022

I have a 6+ year old 90 gallon reef with three fish. I've always had a nitrate problem in the tank ranging from 20-40 consistently.

A month ago I replaced two black grow box lights with two kessil a360x. I also removed the glass canopies. In the 6 years I've had the tank my calcium 500+ and alkalinity (9-10dkh) have been very high. I don't dose. These would just stay high all the time.

I've also had a amphidinium Dino problem for years, however, ignored it when my nitrates were high as I could siphon them up and they'd take awhile to come back and was localized in a small spot in the tank.

Now a month later with the new lights my tank is full of algae. My nitrates are at 0.25-0.5ppm, my phosphates are at 0 even while dosing neophos. And my alkalinity and calcium have started to drop.

Consequently my dino problem has bloomed to the whole tank. No matter how much I feed, I just get more alage, nitrates and phosphates don't increase. This is a problem I never thought I'd have but here I am.

What do I do to get my nitrates and phosphates up so I can start tackling my dinos and stabilizing my water chem?

Lavey29 · Aug 5, 2022

Add more fish and feed more or dose more neophos and neonitro. Cut back export systems, less water changes, etc... variety of ways to raise those two areas.

CoralB · Aug 5, 2022

Start by lowering your light intensity and maybe length of schedule as well .keep dosing and feeding , UV light if you have or can get one , good algae eating clean up crew ie: Mexican turbo snails , tuxedo urchins etc. Sounds like your issue was created by installing better quality lights which bloomed your algae growth. . If you can concentrate on algae removal and finding a balance with lighting , feeding, and algae removal you should be on the road to recovery . The zeroed out phosphates is most likely causing your Dino breakout . Good luck !!!

CamGG · Aug 6, 2022

CoralB said:
Start by lowering your light intensity and maybe length of schedule as well .keep dosing and feeding , UV light if you have or can get one , good algae eating clean up crew ie: Mexican turbo snails , tuxedo urchins etc. Sounds like your issue was created by installing better quality lights which bloomed your algae growth. . If you can concentrate on algae removal and finding a balance with lighting , feeding, and algae removal you should be on the road to recovery . The zeroed out phosphates is most likely causing your Dino breakout . Good luck !!!

What length of lighting do you suggest? I'm at 8am to 8pm but 8am to noon is a gradual ramp up to a max of 30% intensity. 6pm-8pm is also a ramp down to 0%. The lights are two 90 watt kessils.

CoralB · Aug 6, 2022

CamGG said:
What length of lighting do you suggest? I'm at 8am to 8pm but 8am to noon is a gradual ramp up to a max of 30% intensity. 6pm-8pm is also a ramp down to 0%. The lights are two 90 watt kessils.

You can start by cutting back to 6 hours . It worse case depending on how bad your algae issue is to do a total black out for 3 days while keeping a eye on parameters especially ammonia and nitrates . Do as much manual removal prior . Other wise start by cutting back the light schedule ,add algae eating CUC , manual pulling , and also watch not to over feed . Keep a eye on your nitrates and phosphates making sure they don’t zero out . It won’t fix overnight but within a week you should see improvement until you balance out . Good luck !