caulerpa questions

[sanchezkk]

I put some in my display tank about 3 weeks ago. My Nitrates are steady at 4.54ppm and my Phosphates are at zero. Why am I getting some nasty green looking carpet algae?

[AquaRick]

Your algae is consuming your trates and phosphates. How much and how often do you feed?

[sanchezkk]

Once daily and it's a half cube frozen mysis.

[AquaRick]

You may be overfeeding. Depends on bio load tank size and equipment used.

[54seaweed]

try cutting back to 1/4 cube if that's your stock list in sig
if you have nitrates you most likely have phosphates
your algae is most likely masking them
water changes will help bring them down

[sanchezkk]

1 firefish, 1 chromis, 1 cardinal, and 2 clowns. Everything else is my cleanup crew and corals. I have them all in a 55g tank.

[sanchezkk]

I don't think that my bioload is too high.

[Bectan01]

I don't think your bio load is high either. I have a similar stock in my 55g. I feed a cube every other day so not much difference. What's your light schedule like?

[Ingy]

What do you do to eliminate nitrates?

[Nosaj81]

Originally Posted by Ingy

What do you do to eliminate nitrates?

water changes

[Ingy]

That won't eliminate nitrates! It will lower them very slightly, by about 10-20% depending on your water change (i.e. 10%WC = 10% nitrate reduction).

You have a nitrate problem. I suspect its bad too. You have algae growing and still have 4.54ppm nitrates.
I have algae growing and 0ppm nitrates. My algae is chaeto, which is in my sump. Yours is another type in your DT.

You need to find a way to eliminate nitrates (not reduce them). A skimmer is the best thing.

[sanchezkk]

It seems that my lighting schedule could be a bit long. I believe I keep my lights on for 10 hrs or so. I am going to decrease to 7-8 hrs. I'll do that for a week or so and see if that will do the trick.