Taking my Skimmer offline

[Frogger]

I have had one of my tanks (75 gallon RedSea Reefer) set up for over 2 years now and have had a very difficult time keeping any measurable nitrates in the system. Without nitrates my phosphates run a little high. Not really an issue with algae growth because nothing grows well with low nitrates. Unfortunately corals don't grow well without nitrates either.

I started adding nitrates to my system a year and a half ago. This has been met with mixed success. It was great for a while unfortunately adding nitrates crashed my phosphates which resulted in loosing half of my corals within a week.

Since that initial crash I have been adding nitrates and phosphates to my tank to try to keep a balance. Unfortunately this requires constant testing because these are fickle additions and the values can crash or get out of hand real quick if not monitored closely.

About 5 months ago a large yellow tang died and I couldn't find the body anywhere. This caused my nitrates and phosphates to spike by a huge amount for about a month and a half. This caused my corals to loose colour.

In that time hair algae started to grow very fast and without the yellow tang to graze I was starting to get worried, used GFO to help keep the phosphates below .1ppm wasn't anything outside of large water changes I could do for the nitrates. Purchased an algae turf scrubber to try to help manage the nutrients and for other very important reasons.

Before I could hook up the algae turf scrubber my nitrates zero'd out again real quick. One day it was 30ppm and a couple days later couldn't get a reading from Redsea Pro test kit. Phosphates came down as well. About a week after this happened I hadn't started adding nitrates yet and I got a cyno bloom. It was growing on all the rocks and the sand.

After doing some research I found out that a cyno outbreak is common when there is no nitrates in the water and there is stored nitrates in the rock and gravel (from the nitrate spike). Cyno Bacteria will create these mats to be able to process nitrates out of the calcareous surfaces. The cure for this type of cyno outbreak was to raise my nitrates back up to the 1 to 2 ppm level. After about 2 months of doing 2 times daily blowing the cyno off the rocks and weekly water changes and siphoning out as much mats as possible I finally broke down and used Chemiclean to finish it off.

After I got everything under control I hooked up the ATS. I have been adding nitrates and phosphates daily to keep measurable amounts of nitrates and phosphates. The ATS is working great running on a nighttime lighting schedule to maintain ph and O2 levels removing copious amounts of algae.

Daily monitoring of my phosphates, nitrates and alkalinity is not a sustainable process that I want to continue.

I have been reducing my skimmer use because I believe it is the reason that my phosphates and nitrates are unmanageable. I have been over skimming the water.

I think with the ATS I can manage the nitrates and phosphate much better and only use the skimmer when it is needed. Hopefully reducing the need for daily testing.

Every tank is different what works on your tank works on your tank but doesn't work on other tanks. I currently have a 40 gallon sps tank that has been running for 17 years and I only test nitrates and phosphates once every 6 months, test alkalinity once every few weeks and change 10% water once a month if I feel like it. This tank has been in balance colors and growth of the corals are great for several years.

I don't test every day on the 75 gallon because I have nothing better to do I do it because if I didn't I wouldn't have anything but fish and zoas.