Why no algae with sky high nutrients?

[jasonrusso]

So I have 2 tanks. A predator Fowler and a reef tank. The Fowler has always had high nutrients. P04 and NO3 are pretty much off the scale. I do run a biopellet reactor and a high power UV, but I have never had algae issues. I tried running an algae scrubber but the chaeto died. In the Fowler, I have a dwarf angel, foxface, and a bristletooth tang.

My reef tank has 0.06 P04 and maybe 10 NO3, but if I don't pay attention I get algae blooms!!

What is the difference? Is it the lighting intensity? Is it the balance? Are the grazers eating the algae? Does the UV make that much of a difference. If so, I'll buy another UV tomorrow!!

 

[theMeat]

Would say lighting has big effect, and i’v had little

Uv will only kill whatever free floating goes through the unit. Doesn’t do anything for everything else

 

[jasonrusso]

Would say lighting has big effect, and i’v had little

Uv will only kill whatever free floating goes through the unit. Doesn’t do anything for everything else

Obviously the reef tank has more intense lighting. The Fowler is running a single Current IC.

The reef has a Steve's Led which I just adjusted the settings. I'll see if it makes a difference.

 

[Velcro]

32ppm no3 0.5ppm po4 and zero algae with 400 watt halide and reefbrites. The nutrients = algae thing is a lie.

 

[jasonrusso]

32ppm no3 0.5ppm po4 and zero algae with 400 watt halide and reefbrites. The nutrients = algae thing is a lie.

So where does algae come from?

 

[Velcro]

So where does algae come from?

No clue. I had algae with zero nutrients. Got a cleanup crew and algae disappeared but nutrients went up.

 

[Joe Batt]

No clue. I had algae with zero nutrients. Got a cleanup crew and algae disappeared but nutrients went up.

You will have had nutrients but they will not have registered because they were being used up by the algae, giving you the zero reading.

As soon as you had a clean up crew and they ate the algae there was nothing there to use the nutrients, thus they now went up.

I have a large fuge crammed with algae, I read zero nutrients. If I removed the algae from the fuge the next day the nutrients would go sky high. Same thing.

 

[Tamberav]

Light seems to effect it the most but if you have a good CUC or herbivorous fish, it seems to not be an issue. I had a forest of GHA after some neglect and I just did 2 extra water changes and added 2 mexican turbos and it was gone in 2 weeks. Saw them eating the crap out of it. Tank looked better than before the GHA, I think letting the nutrients go wild improved the corals as long I can keep the algae at bay.

 

[jasonrusso]

Light seems to effect it the most but if you have a good CUC or herbivorous fish, it seems to not be an issue. I had a forest of GHA after some neglect and I just did 2 extra water changes and added 2 mexican turbos and it was gone in 2 weeks. Saw them eating the crap out of it. Tank looked better than before the GHA, I think letting the nutrients go wild improved the corals as long I can keep the algae at bay.

Did you ever test the levels? Is there a point where high nutrients actually start affecting coral growth?

I've always read that high nitrate kills inverts, but I have a massive pod population and some snails (I'd have more but my porcupine puffer goes to town at night)in the Fowler that don't seem affected by 50-100 nitrate levels.

 

[Tamberav]

Did you ever test the levels? Is there a point where high nutrients actually start affecting coral growth?

I've always read that high nitrate kills inverts, but I have a massive pod population and some snails (I'd have more but my porcupine puffer goes to town at night)in the Fowler that don't seem affected by 50-100 nitrate levels.

I only tested when I had the GHA and nutrients were low since it was using it up. Nitrate 3 and PO4 .02. I scrubbed the GHA before adding the CUC and put in some GFO and the death of the algae caused cyano bloom since it was dying/flying around the tank releasing nutrients as it decomposed. I then just upped my water changes and stirred the sand bed and two water changes later my sand was crystal white and that is when I added the turbos and they took care of the rest of the GHA without the whole cyano problem.

I don't think corals were ever negatively impacted other than GHA trying to grow on them. Whatever nutrient spike I had got eaten up by the cyano and removed with water changes fairly quickly. I think I removed enough to keep the corals happy but not so much as to make them unhappy.