High nitrate and phosphate but no visible algae growth

[Levinson]

I have not tested for NO3 and PO4 for years. Before when I did, they were pretty much undetectable so I stopped testing.
Recently I got new test kits and tested them and they were very high. NO4 was near 100 ppm and PO4 was close to 3 ppm. I tested them again after I added a new tank to the existing system, increasing the water volume by double with newly mixed saltwater and it went a little lower but still high at NO3 over 50ppm, PO4 somewhere between 1 and 3 ppm.
My main means of filtration was ATS but I also use a tiny protein skimmer and filter floss that don't get changed very often. I increased the ATS light intensity now and hopefully, it will have some effect. After adding the new tank, I have also added Donnovan's nitrate destroyer.
I have been feeding way more than I used to because after I had bred peppermint shrimps, I have many more mouths to feed. That is most likely the reason for this increase.

What I find interesting is that I don't see any algae growing in my tank (excluding microalgae on glass and rocks that you have to get close to notice, even that I have very little of). I wonder why that is? I had some hair algae bloom several months ago (when I didn't have so many mouths to feed) that went away on its own after I increased the ATS light intensity and never came back (I have reduced the intensity afterwards, now it's back up again). The display tank light is actually much brighter now than it was when I had hair algae. The ATS almost exclusively grow ulva at the moment.
Also, the inverts in my tank don't seem to be affected by such high levels of nutrients, though this is purely my speculation. The only thing that killed the baby shrimps were their own siblings and I don't think any of them have died from other causes.
I will wait and see how things change over time. I'm not too worried about the nitrate because it's easy to deal with but more about phosphate. I might consider using GFO if it doen't go down. Or even consider upgrading the skimmer or ATS.
I grow no fish or coral btw.

 

[bakbay]

Curious on how old is your tank? My SPS dominant tank is approaching 4yo and my Hanna UL nitrate tester is off the charts (75+) and PO4 was 0.9+ and now likely 0.3+. I have 4 urchins and zero nuisance algae!

Everything is growing well so I’ve stopped testing for months. I think nutrient levels are blown out of proportion. Oh also, I haven’t changed my water since I filled it up two water + Prime.

Good luck with yours.

 

[Levinson]

Curious on how old is your tank? My SPS dominant tank is approaching 4yo and my Hanna UL nitrate tester is off the charts (75+) and PO4 was 0.9+ and now likely 0.3+. I have 4 urchins and zero nuisance algae!

Everything is growing well so I’ve stopped testing for months. I think nutrient levels are blown out of proportion. Oh also, I haven’t changed my water since I filled it up two water + Prime.

Good luck with yours.

My tank is about 3~4 years old. It is crustacean dominant tank.
I also haven't changed water for over a year, could be two. New water was introduced when the new tank was added just a few days ago.
I have two urchins which I feed myself because there is nothing for them to eat. They've been in the tank for over 8 months.
Everything has been doing ok and never had any issues but would like to bring the nutrient down slowly if possible. I'm waiting for the bacterias to establish in the Donnovan's nitrate destoryer. I'll start dosing some carbon into DND later.

 

[VintageReefer]

You could have iron or manganese deficiency

But scrubbers are great. You might have more favorable conditions for algae in the scrubber vs display.

 

[Levinson]

You could have iron or manganese deficiency

But scrubbers are great. You might have more favorable conditions for algae in the scrubber vs display.

Could be. If iron or manganese deficiency was the cause, I'll start to see some algae growth in the tank soon now the new saltwater is added by adding another tank.

 

[VintageReefer]

I also use a ats as my primary filtration. I haven’t done a water change in years. I feed heavy. I have very small spots in the display with algae, you have to go out of your way to find them. I do dose manganese. My scrubber consistently growing algae and needs to be emptied week after week while minimal to none grows in the display

 

[Doctorgori]

You could have iron or manganese deficiency

OP I’m having this EXACT same issue except one of my tanks is struggling with macro, coralline algae growth AND coral growth …

….the front glass goes 3-4 days without needing cleaning
…my Nitrates so high they won’t even register on my Trident NP, phosphates read .8. …Hanna’s HR confirms high nitrates (can’t recall exact range)

I got the same advice on the iron thing from several folks here….Im implementing trace dosing now and will follow this thread also …

 

[Levinson]

Algae is growing in my ATS fine by the way. Which makes it strange that it doesn't elsewhere. I was thinking if lack of trace element was the cause of no algae growth with high nutrients, may be it shouldn't grow in the ATS as well? Or it should grow different kinds of algae? From what I've heard, ulva takes up quite a bit of trace elements, like iron.

 

[Doctorgori]

Algae is growing in my ATS fine by the way. Which makes it strange that it doesn't elsewhere

Sounds like normal operations then as the whole point of a ATS is so algae grows mostly there and NOT elsewhere …
complaints, complaints sheeez ….

added: yeah I’ve noticed ULVA can dominate a system with other algae….chaeto doesn’t mix well with it and fails…. maybe try OGO in addition to or in lieu of

 

[Levinson]

Sounds like normal operations then as the whole point of a ATS is so algae grows mostly there and NOT elsewhere …
complaints, complaints sheeez ….

added: yeah I’ve noticed ULVA can dominate a system with other algae….chaeto doesn’t mix well with it and fails…. maybe try OGO in addition to or in lieu of

But I thought ATS suppresses algae growth elsewhere by taking up the nutrients? If there are plenty of nutrients available everywhere even with the ATS working, what is stopping the growth of algae elsewhere?

Not complaining, just trying to understand. Hey it's not like I have a ton of algae growing in my display tank.

 

[Levinson]

I also use a ats as my primary filtration. I haven’t done a water change in years. I feed heavy. I have very small spots in the display with algae, you have to go out of your way to find them. I do dose manganese. My scrubber consistently growing algae and needs to be emptied week after week while minimal to none grows in the display

Are your nitrates and phosphates also high?

 

[VintageReefer]

Are your nitrates and phosphates also high?

No,

Nitrates 5-10
Phosphate .08 ish

My scrubber grows a type of sea lettuce I can’t identify

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have not tested for NO3 and PO4 for years. Before when I did, they were pretty much undetectable so I stopped testing.
Recently I got new test kits and tested them and they were very high. NO4 was near 100 ppm and PO4 was close to 3 ppm. I tested them again after I added a new tank to the existing system, increasing the water volume by double with newly mixed saltwater and it went a little lower but still high at NO3 over 50ppm, PO4 somewhere between 1 and 3 ppm.
My main means of filtration was ATS but I also use a tiny protein skimmer and filter floss that don't get changed very often. I increased the ATS light intensity now and hopefully, it will have some effect. After adding the new tank, I have also added Donnovan's nitrate destroyer.
I have been feeding way more than I used to because after I had bred peppermint shrimps, I have many more mouths to feed. That is most likely the reason for this increase.

What I find interesting is that I don't see any algae growing in my tank (excluding microalgae on glass and rocks that you have to get close to notice, even that I have very little of). I wonder why that is? I had some hair algae bloom several months ago (when I didn't have so many mouths to feed) that went away on its own after I increased the ATS light intensity and never came back (I have reduced the intensity afterwards, now it's back up again). The display tank light is actually much brighter now than it was when I had hair algae. The ATS almost exclusively grow ulva at the moment.
Also, the inverts in my tank don't seem to be affected by such high levels of nutrients, though this is purely my speculation. The only thing that killed the baby shrimps were their own siblings and I don't think any of them have died from other causes.
I will wait and see how things change over time. I'm not too worried about the nitrate because it's easy to deal with but more about phosphate. I might consider using GFO if it doen't go down. Or even consider upgrading the skimmer or ATS.
I grow no fish or coral btw.

IMO, it's a mistaken carry over from the old days that one can control algae growth by low nutrients and high nutrients mean algae.

Algae growth is not generally best controlled by low nitrate and phosphate, IMO, unless you are very careful to provide N and P in other ways (such as ULNS systems do).

Today, the generally recommend nitrate and phosphate levels are more than enough for algae growth, and it must be controlled in other ways, such as herbivores, competition for space and/or trace elements, etc.

FWIW, algae is unlikely to grow faster at 100 ppm nitrate and 1 ppm phosphate than it is at 20 ppm nitrate and 0.1 ppm phosphate. In both cases, something else will be limiting the algae because it can get all the N and P it wants.

 

[Levinson]

IMO, it's a mistaken carry over from the old days that one can control algae growth by low nutrients and high nutrients mean algae.

Algae growth is not generally best controlled by low nitrate and phosphate, IMO, unless you are very careful to provide N and P in other ways (such as ULNS systems do).

Today, the generally recommend nitrate and phosphate levels are more than enough for algae growth, and it must be controlled in other ways, such as herbivores, competition for space and/or trace elements, etc.

FWIW, algae is unlikely to grow faster at 100 ppm nitrate and 1 ppm phosphate than it is at 20 ppm nitrate and 0.1 ppm phosphate. In both cases, something else will be limiting the algae because it can get all the N and P it wants.

Interesting! I wonder what is limiting the algae growth in my tank.

 

[areefer01]

I have a 7 year old mixed reef with a couple large SPS colonies that some may consider undesirable nutrient levels. 90 percent of the time my nitrate was 32.0 ppm and phosphate 1.7 ppm (peaking at 2.2 ppm). I've also recently lowered Phosphate from its 2.2 peak down to .23 ppm over the past 64 days or so. In both cases algae has never been an issue. Few bouts of cyano here and there but nothing persistent.

In my case I think it comes down to:

• Herbivories which included the right number, types, fish without over competing and die off. For fish it would be the Scopas tang and Gold Lined Rabbitfish. For snails probably the strombus grazers being the biggest work horse. Oh then I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of astrea stars which I think help a lot.
• Focusing on corals that survived instead of chasing or adding new. If it died I assessed what I did or didn't do and moved on. I did not treat the whole system for one failing coral if that makes sense.
• Never reached for an emergency fix and went slow (time over increase and time to decrease or manage)
• I have a lot of fish and feed hourly dry with two frozen feedings per day albeit small portions

Long and short of it is that this is what works for me so I run with it.

Some test results over time( the date legend is a bit misleading as that 2.2 falloff to .23 was over the course of 64+ days ):

Display for reference but not a great photo:

 

[Levinson]

I have a 7 year old mixed reef with a couple large SPS colonies that some may consider undesirable nutrient levels. 90 percent of the time my nitrate was 32.0 ppm and phosphate 1.7 ppm (peaking at 2.2 ppm). I've also recently lowered Phosphate from its 2.2 peak down to .23 ppm over the past 64 days or so. In both cases algae has never been an issue. Few bouts of cyano here and there but nothing persistent.

In my case I think it comes down to:

• Herbivories which included the right number, types, fish without over competing and die off. For fish it would be the Scopas tang and Gold Lined Rabbitfish. For snails probably the strombus grazers being the biggest work horse. Oh then I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of astrea stars which I think help a lot.
• Focusing on corals that survived instead of chasing or adding new. If it died I assessed what I did or didn't do and moved on. I did not treat the whole system for one failing coral if that makes sense.
• Never reached for an emergency fix and went slow (time over increase and time to decrease or manage)
• I have a lot of fish and feed hourly dry with two frozen feedings per day albeit small portions

Long and short of it is that this is what works for me so I run with it.

Some test results over time( the date legend is a bit misleading as that 2.2 falloff to .23 was over the course of 64+ days ):

Display for reference but not a great photo:

What did you do to your tank over these 64 days that it went down so much?

 

[areefer01]

What did you do to your tank over these 64 days that it went down so much?

Small controlled dosing of Lanthanum Chloride. I have a 20 gallon refugium that I can take offline from the display and would dose in here. Basically calculate a dose, take the refugium offline, add a canister filter, apply the dose, wait until water is clear, remove canister filter, bring refugium back online. Each time I did this I would remove about .2 ppm of phosphate. I used both Brightwell Phosphate E and a DIY mix using SeaKlear (1 liter batch which was 3/4 rodi water, 1/4 SeaKlear).

Probably not an ideal way to do it but by doing it this way I was able to clear most of the precipitate or cloudy water. The refugium is more of a junk drawer as there is a matted filefish, random corals that fell over or pieces of, rocks and some rubble. The only thing I noticed is that there was a bit of white cloudy or film on the refugium acrylic that was a bit difficult to remove. This cloudy stuff was also inside the canister filter both filter (expected) and plastic housing and intake. I believe this was due to a couple heavy duty doses when I first started the DIY part.

I stopped LC dosing and observed for a few days and noticed the rebound. I've seen this before and know my rocks or substrate or feeding habits release it day by day. I implemented a mix of 3/4 carbon and 1/4 GFO which would lower phosphate. While that worked it didn't last too long and I saw it again start to climb.

LC is easy to administer but has a lot of risk. Is somewhat messy. A more proper way is probably a diluted formula placed in an IV bag and dripped into a filter sock before the skimmer intake over 4 to 8 hours. When present. GFO to me is way to messy to get started and clean up. So not a huge fan of it. Plus it is more expensive (in my opinion).

I did not observe any issues with fish but I did my best to keep it out of the display. I do have a Scopas tang. Corals didn't seem to care one way or another. There are plenty of horror stories, well that isn't a good word to use, but there are posts around the web with users having troubles with both. So I respect that and one reason why I went so slow and over time.

Now that I have all this data I think the next thing I may do is implement an auto water change. Maybe 4 to 6 gallons a day and see if that does anything. It will be interesting to see. I was able to see how a 20 gallon water change effect (lowered) the phosphate so maybe this will help.

Oh - the only thing that I also noticed was that as I started to lower phosphate my alkalinity consumption went up. In my case I would see demand change between .2 and .4 ppm of phosphate. That was interesting. Higher than that and the demand would decrease.

A more detailed graph over time. We can see how it is starting to climb again once I stopped dosing LC and more recently GFO/Carbon mix.

 

[smitten with ocean life]

following! my nitrates consistently run mid 40s and phos .46. i also dont have a problem with algae. i guess ill just leave it alone...

 

[Reefer Brent]

Have been mostly algae free for a while now which i think regular pod additions help this.

Nitrates 40 and phosphates at 1 Is what I consider my resting tank levels.

I have run GFO then phosguard and phosphates are at .5 now. Nitrates the same 40. Doing small daily water changes as well. Corals are looking better but I have very limited coralline and coral growth.

I dose very light kalk in ato. Magnesium and iron by hand and I feed heavy.

Fish are all happy and other levels are all within parameters on BRS chart.

I use the tropic marin float for mixing

Noop pro 3 over a 22x22x22 40 gallon cube with 2 wave pumps.

Any ideas what might be lacking for growth and coralline in my tank?

 

[rtparty]

Echoing what Randy said. High nutrients equals algae is an old myth that has been disproven numerous times.

Excess algae comes from lack of predation/herbivores. It’s that simple.

ATS does not keep algae from growing somewhere else. The same conditions are present in both the display and the ATS minus one. The water is all the same and ATS lights aren’t magical. I’ve witnessed hair algae explode under only ATI Blue Plus bulbs many times. It’s not the magical spectrum growing hair algae better in the ATS. Why it grows better in the ATS is simply because of rule number one above: lack of predation.

Now for those getting their panties in a wad, I’m not dissing ATS. I’ve ran them many times over the years and really enjoy them. They are a great tool for the right job. They aren’t magical though. You can have the same results with or without one.