One year anniversary

[Optionman]

This weekend marks 1 year with my RS Max 650 (150 gal + 25 sump) below. My mixed reef is packed, I've had great growth in acans, Xenia, GSP, zoas/palys, leathers, Birdsnest, Kenya tree, pipe organ, Duncans, branching hammers, pocillapora, candy cane and others.

I run a two stage CA reactor and an in sump skimmer. I have 3 large tangs who get seaweed daily and another 12 fish who get fed small amounts of bloodworms/rods/mysis daily. I do 30 gal water changes almost every week and began target feeding everyone once/week with reef roids.

I have always used RS Coral Pro salt mix which mixes to an ALK level of 11-12. I test CA and ALK several x/week and my levels have been stable at approximately 11 and 460. I run salinity at 1.026. I've never had any algae issues but recently notices a little more green algae on exposed rocks then previously.

Today I took a water sample to a very reputable LFS and asked them to test just nitrates and phosphate. Results below:

Nitrate 0
Phosp .25

Wouldn't I notice issues if my phosphate was .25? I've never run any GFO but bought some phosphate remover and placed it in media bag in sump and will see what results I get.

Would an algae scrubber work to remove phosphates? Is it normal to have 0 nitrate and .25 phosphates?

Thanks



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[bertoni]

Those numbers are believable. The tank looks very nice, so I wouldn't worry. You could get a second opinion on the phosphate test kit, but people's tanks seem to react very differently to phosphate in the water column. If the algae keeps spreading, I'd look into some form of phosphate control, like GFO, but I'd be cautious. The animals seem to be doing very well.