Confirming info from LFS

Just got back from a trip to the LFS. I am having a small outbreak of green hair algae and a brown hair algae in my 75g tank which is only about 3 months old.

Parameters have been holding at 0 trites, 0 ammonia 5-20 trates (lower just after 10g water change) 8.2ph, 3.5 meq/l alc, phosphates 0, calcium ~500 which is high as I didint have any coral until I added a zoa, gsp and torch just recently.

The LFS said the 0 phosphate could be a false reading as the algae may be consuming it. She suggested adding a bag of phosguard to the sump to see if that helps choke out the algae.

Is this a decent approach/can it hurt anything??

 

Yeah, you're getting what the scientific community calls a "false negative". Your test shows negative, but that's not true. The algae is nabbing it out of the water before you can test for it.

Phosguard is a fine product. It will make your leather corals mad for 24 hours but won't harm them. Follow the instructions. If you leave it in too long, it will de-adsorb the phosphates just as quickily as it adsorbed them.

 

Ok thanks. I had read on here about false pos/neg with phosphate specifically.

The instructions say to pull it after there is a decrease in phosphate, but where mine is already reading 0 just use the 3-4 day rule??

 

:thumb_up:

 

Sounds good to me. If they have GFO, it isn't as important to remove, as it won't leach phosphate back like phosgaurd will after it is full. However, guesstimating isn't bad, if that's what's available.