SaltyReefer19
03/12/2015, 09:29 AM
hey guys, I have a 55 reef with sump, refugium, protein skimmer, live rock/sand and plenty of water movement. My story begins a few months ago with the arrival of green hair algae. I tried everything to combat this problem and then found a solution when I added gfo in a two little fishes 150 reactor. Right before this, my nitrate was reading about 100 and my phosphate at 0 from a Api test kit. I knew it couldn't be a true 0 because I had hair algea. however adding the gfo and reactor cleared my algae in a matter of days.
After the hair algea disappeared my nitrates remained at about 100 and phosphates read 0. I switched from gfo to biopellets after reading a lot of positive reviews about keeping low phosphates and nitrates. It has been about a month and there has been no drop in nitrates. I have disabled my uv sterilizer, seeded the biopellets with microbac7 and removed my gfo. I have researched a lot and have observed comments that if my phosphates are very low and nitrates very high I must raise my phosphate levels to begin the reaction which will eventually lower the nitrates. However, I have never heard anyone actually say they have solved their issue using this method. Hopefully someone knows more about this. I've since been really over feeding flake food to raise phosphates but I wonder if I should actually start dosing the phosphates.
After the hair algea disappeared my nitrates remained at about 100 and phosphates read 0. I switched from gfo to biopellets after reading a lot of positive reviews about keeping low phosphates and nitrates. It has been about a month and there has been no drop in nitrates. I have disabled my uv sterilizer, seeded the biopellets with microbac7 and removed my gfo. I have researched a lot and have observed comments that if my phosphates are very low and nitrates very high I must raise my phosphate levels to begin the reaction which will eventually lower the nitrates. However, I have never heard anyone actually say they have solved their issue using this method. Hopefully someone knows more about this. I've since been really over feeding flake food to raise phosphates but I wonder if I should actually start dosing the phosphates.