Treefer32
Valuable Member
I did a 35 gallon water change yesterday on a 350 gallon system. (350 gallon display 75 gallon sump). Then dosed 7000 mg of fluconozole. I read it's 20 mg per gallon and 350 gallon would be around 7000 mg. So, That's what I did right after the water change.
I cleaned my algae scrubber and left it running but shut down the lights. So, going without any lights on the scrubber for the next two weeks to try to defeat bryopsis. (Only macro algae in my display.)
I should have tested yesterday to get a baseline, but decided to test today for a baseline, because I read that the PO4 released from the dying algae could cause a PO4 spike. And I shut the skimmer down so it's not skimming anything but still sucking air into the sump. So, just swirling water. It's a DC pump so set it from max down to 3 and opened the air valve as wide open as it would go, so it's not really skimming anything out of the water.
Today My baseline is:
Salinity: 1.025
Alk: 7.6 (lower than I'd like, been keeping it at 8.)
Nitrates: 1ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphates: .08 (Red sea Pro)
Tank is a year and three months old, has 13 fish, and I feed 3 cubes of frozen a day (combination of Brine, Mysis, and herbivoir food, plus 1 sheet of nori every 2-3 days.).
My scrubber was filling with hair algae every 6-7 days (to capacity as in it blocked the primary and emergency drain and started overflowing by the 8th day if I let it. So, I'm afraid with shutting all that down I may have a nice algae bloom when it's done, but, I'll need to do a massive water change (probably 100 gallon or so after - 2-3 weeks of the fluconazole running it's course. I do see signs of some of the bryopsis turning gray and starting to lose it's feathers just in the 24 hours of dosing. Everything else looks great. Maybe higher phosphates and nitrates will be better for the corals anyways.
So, my only question is really around 1ppm nitrates and .08 phosphates, is that a ratio in balance? The reason I ask is I have a lot of Cyano. It's slowly peeling off over the last few weeks, but, I'm not sure what caused it to spike in the first place. Everything has been steady and stable as far as I can tell? So, what should PO4 and NO3 be if they were in balance? Should my nitrates be higher to be in balance with my phosphates?
I cleaned my algae scrubber and left it running but shut down the lights. So, going without any lights on the scrubber for the next two weeks to try to defeat bryopsis. (Only macro algae in my display.)
I should have tested yesterday to get a baseline, but decided to test today for a baseline, because I read that the PO4 released from the dying algae could cause a PO4 spike. And I shut the skimmer down so it's not skimming anything but still sucking air into the sump. So, just swirling water. It's a DC pump so set it from max down to 3 and opened the air valve as wide open as it would go, so it's not really skimming anything out of the water.
Today My baseline is:
Salinity: 1.025
Alk: 7.6 (lower than I'd like, been keeping it at 8.)
Nitrates: 1ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphates: .08 (Red sea Pro)
Tank is a year and three months old, has 13 fish, and I feed 3 cubes of frozen a day (combination of Brine, Mysis, and herbivoir food, plus 1 sheet of nori every 2-3 days.).
My scrubber was filling with hair algae every 6-7 days (to capacity as in it blocked the primary and emergency drain and started overflowing by the 8th day if I let it. So, I'm afraid with shutting all that down I may have a nice algae bloom when it's done, but, I'll need to do a massive water change (probably 100 gallon or so after - 2-3 weeks of the fluconazole running it's course. I do see signs of some of the bryopsis turning gray and starting to lose it's feathers just in the 24 hours of dosing. Everything else looks great. Maybe higher phosphates and nitrates will be better for the corals anyways.
So, my only question is really around 1ppm nitrates and .08 phosphates, is that a ratio in balance? The reason I ask is I have a lot of Cyano. It's slowly peeling off over the last few weeks, but, I'm not sure what caused it to spike in the first place. Everything has been steady and stable as far as I can tell? So, what should PO4 and NO3 be if they were in balance? Should my nitrates be higher to be in balance with my phosphates?
