HELP! My nitrates are on the rise!!

[celacanthr]

Bronco those calcareous algaes that you were talking about (shaving brush and the 'cactus' {which I think is Halimeda}) are generally poor nitrate users, but they are WAY awesome looking.
Beth-I am not sure what you plans are for the tank, but you may want to think about going in the direction of a lagoon tank, since you are already going to be getting some macro's and putting them in the tank.
-CELA

 

[reef diver]

This is just an experiment, but after I established my tank, my trates jumped mdown from 20 or so to undetectable, however, i had a massive algal bloom, hmm do i sense an experiment. Well, I scraped about a handfull of the stuff, after the majority was cleanedup by TONS of snails, and I put it in my now empty QT. The qt after sitting idle for 3 weeks with a dead moth stuck behind the filter had had 160 ppm of trates. well this bit of algae grew likw mad until my tank was effectively a solid algal lock, and the trates were down to 10!