Nitrates? How to raise without dosing

[SaltISlife]

Sorry about that! But if your algae is sucking up nutrients as quickly as they are added, once you remove that algae, nutrients will likely come up. You'll have to find a new equilibrium, and test for that. I call that "masked," you might call that something else. The point I was making is that once you remove a lot of algae, you'll need to determine the new nutrient level in the water column.

Look up the definition of masked.. its to hide something. Algae doesnt hide nitrates it takes it away.. there is a big difference in words here man

 

[stanlalee]

Whatever the case if a rapid algae outbreak just occurred it is inadvisable to increase nutrients. The test are useless right now, WATCH the tank for algae growth/die off.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

You know i hate that saying. Nitrates or phosphates arent low.. just masked.


Listen algae doesnt (mask) or hide results in the water. If thr phosphates and nitrates read 0 they are 0. The only thing the algae is doing is sucking it up and keeping it low. It isnt masking anything.


Thats like saying my ammonia is 0 but it isnt really 0 because i have nitryfying bacteria in the tank.

Whatever genius came up with the (masking ) theory is a moron. So sick if hearing that everywhere because it started with someone online.


If you want more nitratws. Feed the tank heavily get more fish. My 135g recently went from 100 nitrates to 0 due to massive water changes and becauae i stopped feeding as much and my denitrate reactors.


Once i went from feeding once a day to 4x a day they went to 10ppm in 3 days. Wasnt hard

I would agree they are not masked! Algae uses them up! It’s the best filtration out there maybe too good! I just need to find the balance! If I remove some of the macro that should help the nitrates temporarily. I’ll start feeding more. Keep up with water changes but I’ll do less water per a change. I just need to keep up with my tangs poop corner!

 

[Reefing_addiction]

Whatever the case if a rapid algae outbreak just occurred it is inadvisable to increase nutrients. The test are useless right now, WATCH the tank for algae growth/die off.

For the two and a half weeks I was away I didn’t have my bf dose phyto. Since Ive been home I have resumed. The algae hasn’t come back since I did the water change and removal 3 weeks ago. While I was gone though my refugium also took off! I have way more macro algae down in my refugium than I had before

 

[stanlalee]

For the two and a half weeks I was away I didn’t have my bf dose phyto. Since Ive been home I have resumed. The algae hasn’t come back since I did the water change and removal 3 weeks ago. While I was gone though my refugium also took off! I have way more macro algae down in my refugium than I had before

If you were dosing live phyto frequently sounds like your fuge (and tank) algae utilized nutrients your live phyto was using. I would still prune the fuge algae and see if there is still enough nutrients to grow it back out quickly with your "normal" routine before increasing nutrients.

 

[Jonify]

Look up the definition of masked.. its to hide something. Algae doesnt hide nitrates it takes it away.. there is a big difference in words here man!

That depends on the algae you want to keep. If the "problem" algae is also taking away the nitrate and phosphates as quickly as it's introduced, then once you remove that algae manually, your nutrients go to a new equilibrium, which takes several days to weeks to test for. Hence, the problem algae is "masking" the actual nutrient level of your tank, should the problem algae not be there. Your test kits with problem algae are not showing what you need to know, it's hiding the actual level, and it will always show "0" because the algae will grow to levels until it remove nutrients to "0". You can't determine the actual level until you remove it. Once you remove it, you can get a sense of what the nutrient levels are in your tank, based on normal feeding/dosing/water changes/etc., absent an algae plant that would eat it up.

Put another way. if algae is "taking away" nutrients, as you said (and it does), then once you remove that algae, your nutrients will reach a new equilibrium, because the algae is not there to eat it. That is why it's called "masking." It's not an honest measurement. You have to remove the problem algae and retest several times to determine the actual nutrient level in your tank based on your normal feeding/dosing/water changes.

 

[SaltISlife]

Still not true. It isnt masking anything. If the water shows 0 its 0. There is no tricking a test.

Again hiw about i pour bleach in your tank kill the bacteria and then say it was masking the ammonia ? I see what your saying. But i dont think you get it.