Can Chaeto survive on high phosphate but zero nitrate?

[BHD]

Hello everyone,

By dosing Vinegar and vacuum out detritus on my bb tank, I manage to keep nitrate very low.
But my phosphate is high around .17. I don't think they are leaking from my rock, I have little rock and they have been in my tank for years. The only place that hair algae grows are on the overflow box. Anyway, I just added a 40 Breeder sump. So I will have an area of 17" x 17" in the sump for Chaeto. Since my nitrate is low, I was wonder if they chaeto will consume mostly Phosphate and survive or it will die. Does Chaeto require both nitrate and phosphate to survive and grown? or they require mostly just Phosphate?

I want to use Chaeto as my main phosphate export method, Do you guys think they will help much or I absolutely need to run GFO also?

Thanks,
Bao

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Zero? Well, it needs nitrogen. There may be enough ammonia for it to grow in the absence of any nitrate, but you may not actually have nitrate lower than ammonia.

That said, it is fairly easy to stall macroalgae growth either with GFO or organic carbon dosing.

I grow macroalgae and dose vinegar, and I find the tanks looks a lot better with GFO as well. :)