Nitrate and Phosphate Help

The hard part is dialing it in ,right amount of water flow ,right amount of lighting ,right amount of time exposed to lighting and the right distance the lights are from the screen .Plus little things that come up along the way ..In my eyes its by far the best way to export the excess nutrients from our systems ,and lets face it ,thats the key ..Thats why we do WC's too..

I still use the good ol' waterfall ,if it ain't broke don't fix it !
I have it so i just remove the slotted PVC with the screen still attached and simply scrape off the growth.Very easy and clean ..No need to shut any thing off either.
heres my screen ,i clean it every Saturday

 

All is correct.

However, it will consume some phosphate but not a large amount. Its recommended for tanks with high phosphates to use other methods to remove the majority and the carbon may maintain the low level. The problem with carbon dosing in this situation could lead to another source for the cyano to flourish.

 

There have been a few critiques of carbon dosing in here. They are all valid. They all are slightly beside my point however. OP needs some help. I'm not recommending making this a permenant thing.

What I'm suggesting is this tank needs to be brought closer to ideal. Carbon dosing for a month or two may not eliminate ALL phosphates and it may not result in perfect balance, but what it will do is start to strip all those nutrients hiding in detritus, rock, sand, and elsewhere out of the system. Try it for a couple of months and when things start looking right, pick a well researched maintainance method.

I'm recommending carbon dosing as triage for a tank where the nutrients have gotten out of control.

 

MD, have you tried directly scrubbing off the algae/cyano like with a toothbrush? If your skimmer is functioning well (as in big enough) it should absorb the nutrients that are in the water column. I've been dealing with a similar situation but to a lesser degree. This reduced the amount of blue/green cyano in my system by about 75%.

 

I have, and it does strip it from the rock. But my attempts to siphon what is being manually scrubbed is futile. So it stirs it up and i am not sure how much gets to the overflow and how much settles. I am planning on another wp25 and i guys that will have to be sooner rather than later. It's it a problem if i am unable to siphon up what is loosed?

 

I can agree with everything you have said here. I'm not against carbon dosing at all. Normally this is the easiest solution to high no³. The OP reported having no nitrate present. My concern with this is because there's the potential that the carbon would only fuel the cyano because there's no no³ present.

 

The cyano is already in the tank, so if all of its not removed its not going to go anywhere. It may spread to areas that haven't been covered already. I would think the amount you are able to siphon out would help even if all isn't siphoned out.

 

Add far as syphoning it all up I can only tell you my limited experience. I didn't worry about getting it all, out even the majority bad vacuumed up. What I found was that there was necrosed cyano underneath the top live cyano. I just wanted that stuff in the water column. I have very good flow and oversized skimming. My belief is that the sediments underlying the cyano keep the cyano living. Of course, if I had an extra hand present, I would have tried to vacuume it up.

 

fwiw, I run phosguard in my tank and it does a great job in reducing visible (not testable) phosphate. I know there are down sides to using it - it can be controversial because it has aluminum in it....but just a little goes a long way and from my reading, as long as you're mindful to not run it too long or run too much, it shouldn't have an adverse effect. You put it in a media bag and set in a higher flow area (mine is in my return section next to the skimmer output) so no need for a reactor. I didn't use it for a while just to see what would happened and I noticed an increase in algae.

I know you're getting a lot of advice and it's hard to decide which to go with. I think Vinny is correct that continual water changes will help reduce your phosphates and nitrates but in looking for something to jump start the reduction, you can try phosguard. I also think carbon dosing would be an option for you once you get what you have under control - and as stated, if it's cyano, I'm not sure I'd recommend carbon dosing to start.

Have you posted a recent picture of what you're dealing with? I'm sorry if I've missed it.

 

I haven't posted a recent picture, and actually none on this thread but i do have one in the algae forum. it looks pretty much the same as it did in that picture 2 weeks ago. not a lot of increase in area thus far.