Going in circles - how best to control phosphate?

oh yeah, moonman makes good points. if you have no plants you dont need Any light LOL
I am also an advocate of java fern/ java moss. but You seemed pretty dead set against plants. But i have nearly always had very good results with these. NO extra light No extra fertilizer, No co2.I dont know how much difference a nice big java fern will make in your nutrient levels, but better than nothing. Plants Are the only other way to remove nutrients beside water changes.
 
The well water is low in nitrates. I've tested the tap, and it comes up less than 10 ppm - don't remember exactly.

Am pretty set against live plants, b/c the parrot cichlids are voracious eaters and big diggers. What doesn't get chewed up ends up floating. Plus, our well water seems devoid of the necessary nutrients, so I had to dose, which is HUGE trial and error. I tried many many different plant varieties, and for 8 months had no success with anything. My initial thoughts had been exactly what you suggested...lots of plants to use up excess nutrients. The tank came with Java ferns initially, and they died rather quickly. So, although you don't add extra fert, your tap water must have some minimum amounts - mine apparently has none!

Lights - since I took out the live plants, I have just had the lights on for 2 hours, after I come home from work. There is a teeny bit of direct sunlight, about 1-2 hours' worth, that hits part of the tank in the morning. Otherwise, it's pretty dim in there.

I will leave all as is for now, and take your suggestions to just work on one parameter at a time. Right now, it's water changes/filter cleaning. Thanks.
 
I had the same sunlight situation:

about two hours each day in the early afternoon about 1/3 of my 37G gets direct sunlight. Which I didn't mind, this being a planted tank I figured some extra light wouldn't hurt. Well, algae took off: it started where the direct light hits but quickly moved to all areas and surfaces of the tank. While cleaning the glass every few days wasn't a big deal, it was near impossible to get it all off the plants/rocks.etc. without constantly rearranging the whole tank. So I ended up introducing three otos: it took them about three days to get the tank clean and it's been clean ever since, they're doing a great job!
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I had a bristlenose pleco who I had for a couple of months, then he just died. He rarely moved from the spot he claimed next to one of the heaters, and I didn't see anybody pestering him, but I never saw him moving around (day or night), so I'm not sure if he starved or something else. I've been thinking of some algae-eating fish, but am afraid to upset the current balance, such as it is.
 
sorry to hear about your pleco. maybe it wasnt too healthy to begin wwith?
I didnt suggest al;gae eatingfish because for one thing, i dont kow which ones like the type of algae youhave. would be a good thing to look into , i suppose, while you are waiting to see if reducing the nutrients and cleaning the filter helps.meanwhile smart to not add new fish untill you get the nitrates etc in order.
I am guessing that janderson had green algea and You probably know more about the difference between that and brown than i do.
All in all I strongly suspect that rtr has called it and you will be happy following his advise.
the simplest explanation of too high nitrates in your tank as far as i know is insufficient water changes. along with the nitrates, whoknows what else was accumulating inthere.
i am expecting good results from your new course of action. keep us updated, ok?
thanks
 
Here's the update:
I did 2nd w/c for the week today. Several hours after, phosphates are about 2 ppm, nitrates are close to 10 ppm. I also replaced the foam in filter #2, since the old stuff was pretty gunky. I know I could have just rinsed it out, but with the redundancy with the filters, I figured it would help lower my nitrate & phosphate levels to replace it instead. Keep your fingers crossed. I'll check the levels throughout the upcoming days, and see what the w/c frequency needs to be.

How do I know how much water to change at a time? Say that the nitrate level goes up to 20. How much water (percentage) do I have to change to bring it back down to 10? I know I should be able to figure this out, based on my w/c this week, but my brain isn't cooperating.
 
Update:
10/11 - 60-70% w/c & vacuum gravel (not very dirty, since I have a pretty bare tank and can swish it around thoroughly on every w/c)
Nitrate 20-40 ppm, Phosphate 2-5 ppm after w/c
10/13 - 60-70% w/c, cleaned filter #2 and replaced all 4 sponges in that filter
Nitrate 10-20 ppm, Phosphate 2 ppm after w/c
10/16 - Nitrate 10 ppm, Phosphate 2 ppm, Ammonia .25 ppm
10/22 - Before w/c, Nitrate 20 ppm, Phosphate 2 ppm
50% w/c
Nitrate slightly under 10 ppm, Phosphate .5-1 ppm after w/c

I had more brown stuff than I would like that still has accumulated on the driftwood and on the leaves of the silk plants.

I haven't changed anything else from the original tank specs shown above. Is this normal, or should I try to do something else? If so, what do you suggest? Any changes to the lights?

Thanks for all of the suggestions thus far. I'm encouraged enough to consider getting another (smaller!) tank (once I've got this one licked).
 
It sounds like you have it down now, just monitor your changes a few weeks as you have been doing to find what it takes to keep it down. keep an eye on the diatoms while the tank is operating at lower nutrient levels. With any luck they will fade a bit, or not come back so quickly with water cleaner.
 
This is perhaps a ridiculous question...

It occurred to me that I have 2 empty media chambers in each of my two Fluval 404s. Would it help to keep the nitrates lower, and from increasing as quickly, if I were to add more ceramic doodads into each filter, to increase the size of the bacteria colony? I thought my original problem was phosphates, but in hindsight, I think it was the nitrates.

Thanks.
 
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