Red Macro turning white and filamentous algae!

[KonradTO]

Hi everyone,

My macros where looking gorgeous. Then they stopped growing.
Tested nitrates and phosphates and were both 0.
I started to feed more my only fish to increase nitrates and they remained 0.
Finally decided to dose iron + micro + nitrates (KNO3).
After a couple of days red macro (I think is galaxaura) started to bleach and red filaments are hanging from the leaves of all my macros. Sand turning brown.
Green macros seems ok.

Aaaaaa why did I interfere.

How can I fix this?

 

[KonradTO]

Here you can see the filaments and the bleaching

 

[KonradTO]

Sand turning brown..

 

[sixty_reefer]

You need to get the nutrients up

 

[KonradTO]

You need to get the nutrients up

I literally trashed my tank, there is un eaten pellet all over. Dosed No3 as well. I am a bit worried to mess up even more if I increase nutrients.. Or am I missing something?

 

[KonradTO]

Also green algae film is growing faster than usual on glass

 

[Wasabiroot]

Did you change your lighting at all? What are phosphates at? My Gracilaria turned white when I had low Nitrates and too much light.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I literally trashed my tank, there is un eaten pellet all over. Dosed No3 as well. I am a bit worried to mess up even more if I increase nutrients.. Or am I missing something?

What’s your current no3 and po4?

 

[rhostam]

Was there perhaps a temperature swing?

That looks also like a type of stress due to temperature changes which can lead to death.

Regardless, prune all of the dead growth (translucent or bright tips).

@AlgaeBarn might be able to provide some suggestions, too.

 

[KonradTO]

Did you change your lighting at all? What are phosphates at? My Gracilaria turned white when I had low Nitrates and too much light.

My light is as usual. I just moved one fixture over the red macros for a couple of days and then moved it back on the top of Caulerpa (but it still lights up both of them). I definitely have zero nitrates if I can trust my test (Sera), but I am feeding like crazy.

 

[KonradTO]

What’s your current no3 and po4?

NO3 is zero apparently. I will test PO4 later but last week was 0 as well. That's why I started to overfeed.

 

[KonradTO]

Was there perhaps a temperature swing?

That looks also like a type of stress due to temperature changes which can lead to death.

Regardless, prune all of the dead growth (translucent or bright tips).

@AlgaeBarn might be able to provide some suggestions, too.

I can exclude safely temperature swings because I have 2 heaters with an Inkbird controller and the temperatures are always 25 C. (I guess it's 78F)

 

[KonradTO]

I can easily boost nitrates with KNO3 but I am coming from freshwater where when you see hair algae means "TOO MUCH STUFF". So I was a bit scared to increase nutrients. The test is supposed to be good, it's brand new, and the other day I poured some KNO3 on the vial to see if it was changing and it reacted quickly.
What I am wondering is why I have low NO3 with all the uneaten food accumulating on the substrate..Could be because of phyto dosing? I reduced it to 5ml per day (I have some feather duster worms, that's why I am dosing nanno)

 

[Wasabiroot]

Maybe turn off skimmer for a short while? Would add both trates and Phos

 

[sixty_reefer]

NO3 is zero apparently. I will test PO4 later but last week was 0 as well. That's why I started to overfeed.

You may need do dose no3 and possibly po4 just feeding won’t cut it.

 

[KonradTO]

Maybe turn off skimmer for a short while? Would add both trates and Phos

I do not have a skimmer, just the AIO stock filter+external filter

 

[KonradTO]

You may need do dose no3 and possibly po4 just feeding won’t cut it.

I will test phosphates and in case its 0 will try to reach 0.2. Does that sound about right?

Is there any drawback at dosing? is it like once I reach high nutrients I never manage to bring them down or they will be depleted by the macros if I dont dose regularly?

 

[Wasabiroot]

I would try to reach 0.05 - 0.1, but do so slowly. Swings in phosphates make corals grumpy.

 

[KonradTO]

Ok I dosed 2ppm NO3 tomorrow I will dose 2 more and test also phos.
For phosphates I knew that fish food contained a lot of those and the problem is usually to keep them low..maybe I have too many pods. I will see if I need to get some phosphate fertilizer in case and try to get to 0.1. I do not have any coral yet so maybe I can try to reach that in few days

 

[KonradTO]

Ok I dosed 2ppm NO3 tomorrow I will dose 2 more and test also phos.
For phosphates I knew that fish food contained a lot of those and the problem is usually to keep them low..maybe I have too many pods. I will see if I need to get some phosphate fertilizer in case and try to get to 0.1. I do not have any coral yet so maybe I can try to reach that in few days

Today I tested Phosphates. It's undetectable by my test kit, so I assume it's close to 0. I will try to get some PO3 fertilizer this week.
I also dosed 2 more ppms of NO3.
How long it would take to see the effect of dosing? What I mean is, how much it takes usually once you dose to see the positive effects of the increase in nutrients? As far as I remember from my freshwater adventure you could see in less than 24h a massive difference in some fast growing plants and you could literally see them photosynthetize, as they were all "bubbling".