Starting a new tank, this will be my third, been doing this for 5 years, my opinion is that it takes a long time for your tank to really be stable, I mean, u cycle it, no ammonia etc but ur bacteria takes a long time to really build up properly, at least six months, in the mean time ur other parameters are in check which is great, but I won't add sps for at least 6 months, it always seems that they don't grow, don't die but don't grow, then all of a sudden they encrust then explode with growth or look nice for a while then slowly fade, try and get the tank better established, dose pods, algae, additional bacteria and only do water changes when ur nitrates are over 10-16ppm, phosphates could be from food but probably from ur rock, I always seem to register phosphate while running gfo for the first year then it's gone, I'm assuming it's in the rock then when it's gone I don't run any gfo until it registers again, my last tank my nitrates were between 12-16 with phenomenal growth from my acros, no phosphates but I know something was using it , I wanted to lower my nitrates but couldn't get them down, even with weekly water changes, but everything looked great so I wasn't too concerned, I think it just takes time!!
