Chemistry Is Hard

So these may be some pretty newbie questions but i would feel more newbie by being prideful and not asking.

1. If i am overfeeding, would i see a rise in nitrate and phosphates or possibly ammonia and nitrite?

2. Does it do me any good to test my water right after a WC or am i wasting test solution?

3. How often should i do a WC if i am seeing 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates?

4. Could I be seeing 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates due to the diatom, hair algae, and cyano, or would the small amount of macro in my fuge be making them 0?

It doesn't seem like there would be enough macro to keep those levels at 0 especially with all the crap algae growing in my DT, and I would think if my levels had been too high the nuisance algae would not bring them to 0. Anyone who can clarify this for me would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hope that helps.

 

good luck
P

 

Well, the growth i have in my DT has been about halved since I bought an army of snails. Yet i still always have 0 on all 4 parameters. I can't tell if my Macro has grown but it is still just a handful for a 55g DT and 35g sump/fuge. Do you think that is enough macro to get me 0 readings?

On another note, my dkh i can't seem to keep steady. I have read everything i can find on the subject so i understand it goes hand in hand with Cal which stays steady when i dose both. I don't understand the precipitation aspect which is where i am guessing the dkh is going to since i have no corals or coralline algae to speak of.

 

If you have little corailline or stony corals you should be good with regular small water changes.You should not need to dose anything.It would be good to remove as much hair algae from your display manually as you can.The macro in your sump should take over consuming the exess nutrients and begin to grow.

 

I tried to manually remove but wasn't too successful. What is a good method for manual removal?

 

yeah, a good CuC is critical. That growth may be halved, but it is still growing, the snails just stay on top of it. It's kind of like shaving every day.
I had 0 readings and no refugium at all... It's entirely possible.

dKH not steady. It goes hand in hand w/Ca sure, but that is irrelevant if your Mg isn't where it is supposed to be (you may have another thread on this, don't know). Mg first, then others.

Yeah, I noticed he said no corals too. So if you have no corals, then you certainly aren't doing a WC for elements. . . Your nitrates are 0 (or at least under control w/manageable algae), I don't see any reason to do a WC at all - let alone 'regularly'. WC are way overrated in this hobby.

But agree you shouldn't have to dose anything... how old is this tank?
Are you doing WCs?
I'm starting to wonder if your WC is what is throwing a wrench in your chemistry...
WC are opposite of stability and leave you open to all kinds of small changes that add up. I suggest stopping them till you have a quantifiable reason to do it.

 

There isn't. You can cut and scrape at it, making a big mess in your tank and then do a massive WC to vacuum it all out...

You could get a bigger CuC

You could lower nutrients and wait it out (die off)

You could borrow a lawn mower blenny or something similar (I wouldn't keep a lawnmower (or any mega algae eaters like cucumbers) long term in a 55 though)

Or some combo

 

My tank is 5 months at this point including cycle.

I am doing WCs but not on a regular basis. About once every 3-4 weeks.

I don't have a Mg test at this time so instead of dosing without testing I figure at least a WC is going to replenish some Mg.

I am going to get a Mg test soon. So I should not do any dosing of Ca or KH before I can test and get Mg on track?

i basically scraped it with a rigid siphon tube to get as much as i could so I guess I am on track there.

I think my CuC is sufficient. I had none for too long and things got out of control. At the rate they are going by this time next week they will appear to have nothing to eat. At that point would i be correct to think my macro algae would start growing more since it will have more nutrients? And any suggestions on how much or kinds of macro to have?

The WC i did recently i did to lower nutrients that are maybe just not showing up on my tests. I figured it would be better to do small WCs to keep them in check but now it seems that may be stunting my fuge growth if i understand correctly.

I agree, a lawnmower blenny would be overkill. It would probably die if i borrowed one from someone, knowing my luck.

 

Test your Mag.It is key to stabilizing your tank.STOP DOSING!!There is no need for you to dose.