Phosphate and new tank parameters

[re76]

Hi all,

I am in the process of cycling my Reefer 450 and took some time yesterday to measure all my parameters:

Alk: 8.82
PH: 7.9
Calcium: 500
Magnesium: 1400
Phosphate: 0.16
ORP: 240-245
Salinity: 35ppt
Temp: 78

I am using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt. Tropic Eden meso flakes for sand and Marco dry rock.

The PH and Alk are a little low from what I can tell. Everything else I am happy with. I dosed ammonia to about 2ppm and am still waiting to see Nitrites. I added about 8lb of live rock from my LFS to help seed the tank. I have kept lights off and am running a gyre xf150 at about 25-30% right now.

The phosphates seem high to me, and I am assuming that my Marco rocks are leaching a bit of phosphate. Should I do anything during the cycle to get a head start on this so that I don't have an algae problem on my hands? I was considering adding some GFO or maybe dosing Phosphate RX. Should I be doing that during my cycle?

Once I start to see some Nitrates I plan on running biopellets, but I don't think they would help anything at this point.

Any and all advice is appreciated!

 

[mcarroll]

Using biopellets from the start can cause problems in a new tank with growing corals....I'd hold off until you actually need them. Same with any other control measures – don't deploy them until needed.

Relatively high phosphates seems to encourage nitrate consumption in corals, for example.

 

[re76]

Using biopellets from the start can cause problems in a new tank with growing corals....I'd hold off until you actually need them. Same with any other control measures – don't deploy them until needed.

Relatively high phosphates seems to encourage nitrate consumption in corals, for example.

So for the biopellets, when do you reach the point of "needing" them? Once Nitrates get out of control?

 

[mcarroll]

I've seen a lot of reefs never reach whatever point that is. And on top of that, I've seen quite a few additional reefs have to get nitrates dosed into the system due to a lack.

Wherever the advice came from that says carbon dosing is automatically a good thing, or maybe even necessary, it is wrong.

Carbon dosing is a hack for out of control nutrients (which are a sign of out of control stocking/feeding) in my estimation, and it seems to be stressful to stony corals due to the whole "burnt tips" thing. On those bases I'd use carbon dosing only as-needed. Perhaps a day may come where you need it all the time....but let it come.