400 gallon project

[untamed]

Originally Posted by Canuckgod420

I read back a few pages and was wondering how the hair algae problem was coming along?
You have zero nitrates and still have algae?
Maybe some one can help me understand why I have nitrates..10-15ppm...and I cant grow algae if my life depended on it.
I see sweet reef tanks all over the internet and they almost all have some algae growing somewhere....not me....not 1 speck. I dont get it.

Yes, I still have hair algae. You can see some of it in the clownfish photo.....but it's controllable. I still have one sea hare who manages to find enough to eat. My refugium grows chaeto, but not as quickly as it first did....and yes, I never have any measureable level of nitrate. I've confirmed that many times now, with Salifert tests and the Nitrate monitor.

My guess is that the nitrate is getting used/converted up by algae or bacteria before I can measure it.

I also continue to measure Phosphate using the colorimeter and have a reading of .02 +/- .02....basically nearly zero as well.

Every tank is different, I suppose. I don't aggressively pursue a "low nutrient" environment. I feed heavily because I'm attempting to feed not only the fish, but the billions of other critters that are trying to survive in there.