Hello all,
I recently set up a 20 gallon long tank with 2 clownfish, a firefish, a royal gramma and a skunk cleaner shrimp. Before the 20, i had two clowns and the shrimp in a 10. I had pre cycle wet live rock in that tank and was constantly seeing nitrates.
When i switched to the 20, i transferred all the of substrate and live rick, also adding new dead live rock i got from someone on FB marketplace.
Since then, there has been an increase in brown algae on the glass, hair algae and also green algae on the substrate. After testing, i found there was 0 nitrates and 0.25ppm phosphates. My guess is that the dead live rock is releasing phosphates but im not quite sure why my nitrates are 0. I have a pretty heavy bioload and feed pretty well. I do about 25% WC every week as i dont have a skimmer.
Do you guys think that i should focus on raising nitrates or lowering phosphates. I could run something like phosguard but am worried about bottoming out both. Should i also dose nitrates?
Thanks!
I recently set up a 20 gallon long tank with 2 clownfish, a firefish, a royal gramma and a skunk cleaner shrimp. Before the 20, i had two clowns and the shrimp in a 10. I had pre cycle wet live rock in that tank and was constantly seeing nitrates.
When i switched to the 20, i transferred all the of substrate and live rick, also adding new dead live rock i got from someone on FB marketplace.
Since then, there has been an increase in brown algae on the glass, hair algae and also green algae on the substrate. After testing, i found there was 0 nitrates and 0.25ppm phosphates. My guess is that the dead live rock is releasing phosphates but im not quite sure why my nitrates are 0. I have a pretty heavy bioload and feed pretty well. I do about 25% WC every week as i dont have a skimmer.
Do you guys think that i should focus on raising nitrates or lowering phosphates. I could run something like phosguard but am worried about bottoming out both. Should i also dose nitrates?
Thanks!