Nopox/Carb Dose Low NO3/Higher PO4

[neiltus]

75 gallon, 2 months into it with live rock, few corals and inverts, no fish.

Taking it slow. Added a chalice, hammer and some zoa just to see if I am doing things right.

Tank was started with air rock, no cycle, had high NO3 and PO4, NO3 was up to 100ppm and PO4 got up to 1ppm (via salfert and hanna).

Did some pretty large water changes and started dosing (worked up to 9ml) of Nopox. The water changes and Nopox have cut the NO3 down to 5ppm, the PO4 is down to .27. There is some macro in the tank, just a tiny bit, and some micro that the CUC take care of. Skimming pretty darn wet, and emptying cup of the BK160 about every three days. Currently changing about 15g a week.

I have recently cut Nopox down to the 2ml/25g dose about three days ago. I don't want to drive the tank to no nutrients, but still want to reduce the PO4 beyond the .27ppm that I am at currently.

1) continue dosing no pox?
2) stop no pox and run some GFO?
3) Nopox and GFO? (hesitant on this because some people have reported issues running both at the same time).

Comfy with where NO3 is, but would like to get PO4 down so I am leaning towards stopping Nopox and running GFO for a bit...

Thoughts?

 

[Sk8r]

I'd let the macro take care of it. You can also, by my experience, stop the NoPoX dose and resume it later if needed.

 

[neiltus]

So just let the macro grow and harvest as necessary to export PO4?

I am not really sure that I have enough macro to put a dent in the amount of PO4. It's tiny here and there and has not really grown since the rock came in.

There are a couple of larger (2 specifically)-but smaller than a dime patches of hair algae, they have not grown much either (but to large for the CUC to take care of).