Nitrate and phosphate balance, and filtration on AIO

[gabom234]

I have had my 35 gallon waterbox running for around 7 months. I'm trying to dial in my filtration, as this is my first tank and I followed the advice of my LFS when I didn't know anything, and now I'm wondering if I'm taking the correct approach. My nitrates have been hovering around the 11-12 range for the past several months, with a recent spike up to 14.2 this week. I recently added a fish and increased my feeding, which consists of twice daily mysis shrimp, but I'm starting to think its too much (1 cube split into two daily feedings). The phosphates range from 0-0.03. I suspect they are this low because I was told to run chemi-pure elite, and I would imagine the GFO is keeping them low. My filtration consists of filter floss, chemi-pure elite, bio balls, and seachem matrix. I'm coming up on time to buy a carbon filter, and was wondering if it makes sense to ditch the chemi-pure elite and rid the tank of GFO to allow the phosphates to rise a bit. I'm a bit hesitant to make any changes, as my fish and coral all look great. I have started to notice more algae growth recently, so that is what has started me questioning my filtration recommendations from the LFS. Any advice is welcome. For what it's worth, I have two clownfish, a midas blenny, a purple firefish, two bangaii cardinalfish, a cleaner shrimp, a blood shrimp, and decent cleanup crew with the usual suspects.

 

[JTP424]

Sound like pretty good phosphate and nitrate levels, IMO. If things aren't broken, don't mess with it. If your algae growth is increasing, look at increasing your cleanup crew.

 

[rishma]

How are you testing phosphate?

I like to keep my phosphate between 0.05-0.15. If it drops below 0.05 I take action to raise it. My corals get really unhappy if it drops too low.

0.0 ppm phosphate concerns me after a couple battles with dinoflagellates. I might be scarred from that.

Your nitrates look good to me.

 

[gabom234]

I use a Hanna checker to test. I do feel hesitant to change anything since everything has been doing well, so I think I’ll take the advice on beefing up the clean up crew. I had a random snail and hermit crab die off about a month ago, so maybe that’s why I’ve noticed an increase in algae growth.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’d remove the Chemipure elite for now. I think phosphate levels too low is a concern.

 

[gabom234]

Just out of curiosity, what is the concern with low phosphate levels like that? I think I will remove and beef up the CUC for now.

 

[Pistondog]

Just out of curiosity, what is the concern with low phosphate levels like that? I think I will remove and beef up the CUC for now.

Others will chime in, but phosphates are essential for most tank inhabitants. Id lose the chemipure and gfo.
0.03 ppm as measured by hanna does not insure any phosphate as that can be test error.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That sums it up. Phosphate too low seems much worse than phosphate too high in most cases.

 

[BryanM]

Just out of curiosity, what is the concern with low phosphate levels like that? I think I will remove and beef up the CUC for now.

I can tell you when I bottomed out nutrients I had a major dinos outbreak.

 

[gabom234]

Ok, now that I have started this conversation and I'm reading the responses I'm concerned I may have dinos. I'm not really sure, but after reading the responses, I looked up some images on dinos. I have this stuff growing in the back chambers of the AIO, which I assumed were some type of harmless algae. The display area is pretty much algae free other than regular film algae on the glass which I clean daily. Does this look like the start of dinos to you all? Hard to get a good picture, so this is the best I could get with my camera.