Hi Nano-man,

Nitrates and phosphates are a fact of life in reefs. Phosphates usually come from food and our replacement water. Nitrates are usually byproducts from fish waste and uneatten food.

So...its a given that we have nitrates and phosphates in our tanks. The goal is how do we remove it? Well...algae does a great job, but nobody wants an algae reef tank. That's why we have skimmers, refugiums, activate carbon, DSBs, denitrifiers and water changes. Their purpose is to remove these waste products from our tanks.

Is this for your 8 gallon tank?

- Victor.

Thanks for all the info, It's a 2gal tank and pushing the limits on live stock,(the kids Love nemo..... :smile: o'yah and the crabs too)Well it seems that (am I going to jinks myself??)the brown's down I repeat the brown's down. It's only taken 6ish months. Less food I think the bigest problem is that indirect sun light (diffrent spectrume) and the water,I read somewhere that most water has some kind of alge .Some other info that was given to me was that keep using the moutain spring water.It was ozonated. Now I use distilled with supplements. The 1gal has'nt seen any brown.

Hi,

2 gallon -- since your tank is so small, the best way to export nitrates, nutrients and phosphates is with water changes. The best way to fix it is to get some better quality water and do a couple of 25% to 50% water changes. Distilled water isn't good enough. You'll need RO or RO/DI water (reverse osmosis). You can usually buy those at a local super market. I am not sure where you live, but we can usually get RO water from superstore, save-on-foods and safeway.

The indirect sunlight isn't as bad as one might think. It just makes problems show up faster.

Be sure to get a quality test kit for nitrates (hagen ones don't work) so that you can monitor your levels and ensure that algae doesn't have food to grow.

- Victor.