My tank just hit 3 months old. My nutrients have tested very stable for the last month. Phosphate 0.03-0.05 and Nitrate 2-6 although I did have 2 week span that nitrates dropped to 0.5-0.8.
Current parameters
Phosphate 0.04
Nitrate 2.4
SG 1.023
Not testing for anything else right now
I have always had a light dusting of diatoms that pretty much go away overnight and come back during the day but I recently returned from a 6 day vacation and the coating on the sand was much thicker and almost stringy. Not sure if diatoms do this if the tank isn’t cleaned for a while or if I am starting to get a different, more worrisome, type of algae.
I run full lights for 10 hours a day so I’m going to turn them down a little starting today and see if that helps.

Current parameters
Phosphate 0.04
Nitrate 2.4
SG 1.023
Not testing for anything else right now
I have always had a light dusting of diatoms that pretty much go away overnight and come back during the day but I recently returned from a 6 day vacation and the coating on the sand was much thicker and almost stringy. Not sure if diatoms do this if the tank isn’t cleaned for a while or if I am starting to get a different, more worrisome, type of algae.
I run full lights for 10 hours a day so I’m going to turn them down a little starting today and see if that helps.


