Yes, I'm doing it.
Reading this post make me feel good … I am not so crazy.
First of all, I will like to apologize for my English; I'm from Spain, I'm a frequent reader of RC but I am not used to write in English. I will do my best … sorry If I don’t express well.
For several months I was unable to stop the algae bloom in my aquarium, even with zero nitrate and phosphate (I’ve got very few bioload). I tried almost every thing that could be suggested, but nothing worked. I’ve got several years of experience and some reefs aquariums that work really well for years, some of them with high nitrate levels.
I had macro (caulerpa racemosa and prolifera), but it did not grow, so I thought the problem was the nitrate. The first step was stopping the skimmer, buy it also raise the phosphate level, actually after two months nitrate were never detected (lower than 0.2 ppm), while phosphate raised till 0.3 ppm. But I get something, after several months of monochromatic brown colour (di
atoms), I could see same green, but most of then cyanos, and the macro still didn’t grow.
I read something about the Readfield proportion (a relation between the ratio of nitrate and phosphate and the algae growth in soft water). I could not find anything equivalent for salt water, but I think it should be similar.
I’ve been adding nitrates (potassium nitrate) for some weeks now, in an effort to reduce de nuisance algae, increasing the ratio between nitrate and phosphate (Right now there are 2-3 ppm of nitrate and less than 0.1 ppm of phosphate). Until now I can’t say that the experiment has been a success, cyanos are still there but I observe a slow growth of macro algae.
Probably the problems are due to the old LR that I take from the other aquariums. I haven’t tried cooking the rook, before I will try to solve the problem this other way.
Greetings from the sunny Spain .
