Newly cycled tank

[Drichards]

I have a 6 week old tank that has an extreme amount of green dust algae on the glass and in the water column. I clean it and 8hrs later it's back. I have 2 clowns in the tank. My phosphate has bottomed out. My fear is getting dinos! so I keep dosing po4. But I think I'm just feeding the algae blooms. Any advice? Should I stop dosing po4 and try to starve out the blooms? Been years since I've done this.

Cycled with:
Live sand
Careb sea rock
Microbacter start xlm
Ammonium chloride.

After about 2 weeks tests showed cycled

 

[Drichards]

Bump

 

[Chris.sturgis]

Please post a picture.

 

[thrillreefer]

If it’s green in the water column it doesn’t sound like problematic Dinos. Probably just typical green algae in new tank. They ate the available phosphate and now perhaps you’re fertilizing them with the added PO4 so they’re growing faster than expected.

Dinos in my experience look brown, mostly cling to surfaces and look stringy/have air bubbles attached.

But yeah pics will help a lot!

 

[Drichards]

Please post a picture.

 

[Drichards]

If it’s green in the water column it doesn’t sound like problematic Dinos. Probably just typical green algae in new tank. They ate the available phosphate and now perhaps you’re fertilizing them with the added PO4 so they’re growing faster than expected.

Dinos in my experience look brown, mostly cling to surfaces and look stringy/have air bubbles attached.

But yeah pics will help a lot!

Would you stop dosing po4?

 

[Chris.sturgis]

I see there is a window behind the tank. Is there any sunlight that hits the tank?

 

[Drichards]

I see there is a window behind the tank. Is there any sunlight that hits the tank?

No, the shades are closed all day long as we are not home

 

[thrillreefer]

I’m not sure about phosphate dosing early in startup. Might be a good way to jumpstart the algae and pods but idk. But what about nitrate? If that’s also low/zero I think you’d want to dose both. And maybe get some cleanup crew, they’ll enjoy the algae growth.

Rockwork looks excellent btw!

 

[Drichards]

I’m not sure about phosphate dosing early in startup. Might be a good way to jumpstart the algae and pods but idk. But what about nitrate? If that’s also low/zero I think you’d want to dose both. And maybe get some cleanup crew, they’ll enjoy the algae growth.

Rockwork looks excellent btw!

Thank you, nitrate is relatively stable. Been putting a ton of pods in from my grow out to try and neutralize the algae. I feel like I need to get a stable phosphate and then deploy more of a cleanup crew like you mentioned. Anytime I've seen phosphate drop out consistently I eventually got dinos that's why I'm so paranoid. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.