40 ppm nitrates

[william swann]

hey I have a 15 gallon reef and 5 gallon fuge with
a manderine dragonet (4 months and healthy), fire fish, clown pair, very small RBTA, mixed corals, and inverts. I’m 15 years old and started this tank last august (this is my first tank) just for more info

my question* is if my tank looks happy, how much lower should my nitrates be and are there any suggestions on how I can do this without a skimmer (I want to save money for a skimmer when I upgrade to a 40 breeder) and so far to keep down nitrates I do a 5 - 10ish% weekly water changes but I feed a half a cube to a full cube of different frozen foods per day as well as reef roids for my corals like once a week

and sorry for this extensive post but i use API to test my water and I have never used any other test kit ( so it maybe be off a little ?)
thanks for any inputs

 

[P-Dub]

If things are doing well with the levels you have, I would not worry about it too much. So long as there are no algae issues and your corals are happy, keep doing what you are doing.

 

[william swann]

ard thanks, i’ll try to keep them low but I won’t stress unless something looks wrong