Hey there again, so my tank is roughly 9 months old. I’ve fallen off over a few months and finally am back in the swing of things and trying to get this tank right.
Things are actually going fairly well. But phosphates are a bit high. I’m wondering if this is contributing to my lack of growth and algae issues. Which I am managing a bit better than before.
System is 40gallon display and sump is eshopps 100 I think. kinda small, so space is limited.
Salinity: stable at 35ppt
Temp: 78.5deg F
Alk: 7.89dkh
Nitrates: 12.3ppm
Phosphate: 3.2ppm
So the reason I posted this in the equipment section, was to get some help determining what I should add too help bring this phosphate back to normal.
As far as I can tell, my options are
Skimmer- installed a bubble magus z6 but it was too big and just overflowed constantly. So I removed it.
Algae scrubber- more expensive than I’d like.
Refugium- unsure if it can replace a skimmer. Unless they can exist in the same compartment I can’t do both.
gfo- considering using it to begin lowering the numbers. But was hoping not to add the cost of constant replacement to the monthly bill ya know?
This being said, it doesn’t seem that .3ppm is terribly high and I’m not trying to do this in a day. More thinking of seeing it slowly decrease.
I will add some photos of the tank and sump so you can see what I’m working with space wise.
I was thinking the tunze 9004 skimmer, and a refugium if they can both run in the same compartment. But I haven’t seen anybody do them together. Skimmer typically gets its own chamber. I only have one other than the return chamber.
Would building an acrylic shield around the skimmer prevent algae from entering the skimmer?
Any shareable wisdom or critiques are welcome. Thanks for reading!
Things are actually going fairly well. But phosphates are a bit high. I’m wondering if this is contributing to my lack of growth and algae issues. Which I am managing a bit better than before.
System is 40gallon display and sump is eshopps 100 I think. kinda small, so space is limited.
Salinity: stable at 35ppt
Temp: 78.5deg F
Alk: 7.89dkh
Nitrates: 12.3ppm
Phosphate: 3.2ppm
So the reason I posted this in the equipment section, was to get some help determining what I should add too help bring this phosphate back to normal.
As far as I can tell, my options are
Skimmer- installed a bubble magus z6 but it was too big and just overflowed constantly. So I removed it.
Algae scrubber- more expensive than I’d like.
Refugium- unsure if it can replace a skimmer. Unless they can exist in the same compartment I can’t do both.
gfo- considering using it to begin lowering the numbers. But was hoping not to add the cost of constant replacement to the monthly bill ya know?
This being said, it doesn’t seem that .3ppm is terribly high and I’m not trying to do this in a day. More thinking of seeing it slowly decrease.
I will add some photos of the tank and sump so you can see what I’m working with space wise.
I was thinking the tunze 9004 skimmer, and a refugium if they can both run in the same compartment. But I haven’t seen anybody do them together. Skimmer typically gets its own chamber. I only have one other than the return chamber.
Would building an acrylic shield around the skimmer prevent algae from entering the skimmer?
Any shareable wisdom or critiques are welcome. Thanks for reading!