Help me out!

infinite0180 · Jul 20, 2018

I have a 3 month old 20 gal AIO tank. Two small clowns, a ricordea, and a hammer coral plus 4 snails. Everything is doing quite well. I run filter floss and some activated carbon in a bag. My tank finally just had a diatom bloom this week but its already subsiding. I have diligently changed 5 gal of water ever two weeks using basic IO salt. I finaly got some decent red sea pro tests and have some interesting results. Im trying to decide how to move forward. I want to buy a few lps frags this weekend and i was planning to do my water change tomorrow morning but now im wondering if i need to or not. I also just recieved red sea foundation elements so i can adjust parameters. Heres my current tank chemistry.

Salinity - 35ppt
Temp - 79
Alk - 7.84
Calc - 380
Mag - 1180
NO3 - 16
PO4 - Between 0.00 and 0.01, closer to 0.00 though...

Any tips on moving forward here? Like i said, i can dose now. Should i still do a water change? Or can i just slowly bring calc and mag up? Any advice will help!

infinite0180 · Jul 20, 2018

Also, anybody have any idea how i could have basically no phosphate in my tank? I feed my fish daily... although very small amounts.

Jason mack · Jul 20, 2018

Phos will be consumed by diatoms .. your numbers look good I would maybe raise your mag and alk a little but that’s about all ..

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 21, 2018

infinite0180 said:
Also, anybody have any idea how i could have basically no phosphate in my tank? I feed my fish daily... although very small amounts.

Consumption outpacing additions, and some binding to rock and sand.