Low phosphate high nitrate

[Eggpaul]

IMO, Your phosphate was fine at 0.09 (0.03-.15).
I run nitrate at 6ppm using Nopox.
I run Phosphate at .15. - .20 for three years this build
Pull the GFO, watch your tests, do nothing until to reach say .20, then bring the GFO back on line to reduce a bit slowly.
See what the tank can do on its own.

Nice. When you say bring the GFO back on line, should I open the ball valve just a little so water goes through the reactor more slowly? (the reactor is plumbed into the return, controlled by valve).

Even when the phosphates were at 0.09 , some acropora didn't look as good as I thought. Maybe because of the Nitrates?

 

[Eggpaul]

So you don't use GFO? @Uncle99

 

[Duncan Tse]

Nice. When you say bring the GFO back on line, should I open the ball valve just a little so water goes through the reactor more slowly? (the reactor is plumbed into the return, controlled by valve).

Even when the phosphates were at 0.09 , some acropora didn't look as good as I thought. Maybe because of the Nitrates?

After 1.5months of using nopox my nitrates went from 25 down to 10. I have decreased the dosage to 1mL/day and planning to maintain it there unless I see a drop in nitrates.

One thing that I've learned from this is that unless you're corals are suffering/algae problems high PO4 even at 0.2ppm doesn't seem like much of a problem. If you want to reduce PO4 I would reduce feeding and check back in a week.

Trying to balance PO4 with using gfo was a huge problem for me as I keep getting 0 PO4 even with the smallest amount 1/8 tsp of GFO and then my corals would suffer. If I want to increase PO4 then I would just feed a little more.

Seems like everyone was right and stability is key. As long as the corals are doing good then numbers don't really matter unless it's getting way out of hand.