Tank is about 10 months old, 20 lbs of rock, and 20 pounds of Carib sea black and white substrate. Have 20 different corals, mostly softies, i.e. nepthea leather, various zoas, gsp, paly, duncan, some cyphastrea, etc. Two clowns, and scooter blenny, 3-4 snails, blue legged hermit for cuc. During cycle, no lights, cycled about two months, started added a few corals here and there over about 4-5 month period. Filtration is a fijicube AIO drop in, running filter floss, matrix, and purigen. I have always had a nitrate issue of about 30-40 range even before adding fish. Fish just went into tank about a month ago. I do 30% wc's a week using distilled water, sometimes two wc's a week, and nitrates may get into the 20's, but will be back close to 40 in 6-7 days. Bought a separate HOB filter to see if it would help, and even a skimmer (skimmer still in break in phase) and still manage to have 30-40 nitrates. Salinity is consistent around 1.025, temp 78-80 range, PH around 8.0, Calcium running 460, magnesium is around 1490, and my alk just won't get past 7dkh. I am dosing AFR one part, and am currently up to 6.5 ML a day. So what do you recommend on getting nitrates down to 10-15 range? What can I do to get alk up? If I continue to use AFR, then mag and cal will continue to climb, is there a middle ground with AFR? Should I dose something else entirely? I have one DC wave maker running on opposite side of return flow running at low and med flow throughout lights on period, it fluctuates from low to medium every few seconds. Alk, PH, and Nitrates are my concern here. What do yall suggest? Spent alot of time watching BRS TV, but the info can be overwhelming. I have been deep vacuuming the sand the last two weeks, something I wasn't doing recently, and that seems to pull out a lot of nastiness, but not making much of a dent. Will a skimmer make much of a difference once it's running properly, should I consider nopox? Anyway, let me know what yall think. Just baffled at this point. Thanks.
