Can a 1 year old tank go through another cycle?

[luvscigs]

I finally got my nitrates under control, and red slime algae is disappearing, but now I've got green algaie growing like crazy. All readings are at 0, except nitrates @ appx. 10. I have a wet/dry that I'm using as a sump, and no bio-balls, and I just removed the filter box and filter pad and now just have my overflow hose drain directly into the sump. It's a 55 gallon with appx. 100 lbs. of live rock, couple of power heads, 4 small fish (2 damsels, 1 perc, and one spotted pajama cardinal), an engineer goby (I've don't think a sunami could move as much sand around as he does), and a dsb of about 4-5 inches. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[Guest]

The green algae as well as Cyano love Phosphates and Nitrates.. The amazing thing is, you can deplete the Nitrate all you want but if there is Phosphate in there, the algae is going to flourish. Need to get a PO4 test kit... Then figure out what is causing the increase.. Usually feeding and decaying food... I don't think you would be going through another cycle unless you are severely overstocked..

 

[MantisFreak]

I wholeheartedly agree with Tim.

In addition, it is very challenging to test for nitrates or phosphates when there is a lot of algae in the tank. You can only test for what is floating around in the water column and the algae and/or bacteria will grab it out of the water column to be used as food to grow. Therefore, the test kit will indicate a lower concentration than really exists.

Another thing to think about is temporarily using mechanical filtration like filter pads or a powerfilter. Then buy a turkey baster at the grocery store and blast those rocks with strong jets of water to get the detritus suspended in the water column. Do this repeatedly over the weekend and try to get as much detritus out as possible. Your post didn't indicate if you had a protein skimmer or not. Using one would also assist in the same manner.

 

[MantisFreak]

oops