My Dilemma

[Thrashed]

Ok guys, I've been in the and out of the hobby for around 15 years now and this is new to me. So I'm reaching out in hopes of some answers. Let me start with my setup, 90 gallon mixed reef with a bunch of frags (no huge pieces) with a 55 gallon sump, 29 gallon biocube (full of mushrooms and softies), and a Reef Octopus classic 150int skimmer. Skimmer is running dry skim and fills every 2-3 days, so it's pulling tons of gunk out. I have 15 fish through the system but all are nano style fish. Biggest fish in my system is a blue tang I rescued from a local LFS (story posted about it already this thing is barely the size of a quarter after 3 months in the tank). But I do weekly water changes of 15 gallons on Saturday and test on Tuesday. So today was test day and nothing has changed, it's been 8 months with this system, test results always read the same, High Nitrates that never seem to lower. I've cut feeding back to every other day as well as started changing filter socks every 4 days. Any ideas on what my next step is to drop them? I'm mind blown that everything is thriving, even down to I'm having insane growth from all my Monti frags as well as Hydnophora frags are booming.
Test Results are below, PH, Nitrate, Ammonia, and Phosphates all API and Calcium, and Alk are Hannah
PH-8.2ppm
Ammonia- 0.25 ppm
Nitrate (Saltwater Test Kit)- 40ppm
Phosphates- 0ppm
Nitrates (Reef Master Kit)- 20ppm

Alk- 7.7
Calcium- 523 ppm (I know it's high I double checked with API kit and got roughly the same)

 

[mdb_talon]

While i realize nitrates at 20 is higher than what we normally shoot for I got to ask why do you want to go lower if everything is thriving?

I guess as far as an answer the first things that come to mind are carbon dosing or refugium (though if at 0 phosphates might need to dose some to allow that to work well).

However I stick with the "if it aint broke dont fix it" philosophy still and would do nothing. Maybe if anything reduce feeding of fish.

 

[Thrashed]

While i realize nitrates at 20 is higher than what we normally shoot for I got to ask why do you want to go lower if everything is thriving?

I guess as far as an answer the first things that come to mind are carbon dosing or refugium (though if at 0 phosphates might need to dose some to allow that to work well).

However I stick with the "if it aint broke dont fix it" philosophy still and would do nothing. Maybe if anything reduce feeding of fish.

Got a fuge in my sump as well as running a carbon reactor 8 hours a day. I agree it's working, but if I can get them lower then it's less stress I have when adding new corals. I'm a lobo freak and really been fighting it as I set this tank up with the mindset of a sandbed full of lobo, tracy, and clams. So it's driving me crazy trying to figure out why they won't drop before I add anything