Best options to improve Nutrient export? Nitrates ~ 30+ and Phosphate .2 w/GFO

[vadryn]

Need help figuring out improving filtration and nutrient export. I have a 90g sumpless with in-tank refugium, (chaeto, tunze light 24/7, chaetogro dose 1-2/week), Tunze 9004 in-tank skimmer. 3"-4" sand bed and heavy on LR. Tank has been running for years, but actively for last year. 30% water change every 2-3 weeks. Nitrates ~ 30+ and Phosphate .2 with GFO, finally got it to .1 running GFO. I feed two cubes frozen, half sheet nori and small amount of NLS pellet on auto feeder daily. Amino, Phyto, coral food 1-2 week.
I want to get my phosphate close to or under .1 without GFO and Nitrates < 20. I want to do 30% WC every 3 weeks and stretch to 4 weeks if too busy.

Options:
Cut back feeding even more (worried about aggression)
Add a 2nd Refugium light, run 1st 24/7 and 2nd at night. ($100)
Turn on BioPellet reactor (I have one) and use with refugium.
Get a larger skimmer (Tunze 2012, $430)

Others?

 

[Troylee]

Carbon dosing if your skimmer works decent..

 

[GARRIGA]

Lanthanum chloride through 5 micron sock would help peg it although some mention seeing that in their ICP test. Only option I can think of where I’d be able to dial it in were that needed.

 

[jda]

I would not cut back on feeding - the most available forms of nitrogen and phosphorous come from fish waste.

First, I would use some sort of organic carbon to get the no3 down to you desired level. Vinegar/vodka/sugar/ethanol/whatever - no need to spend more on a reef product for this.

Then, learn how to keep the no3 there with smaller continued organic carbon dosing, water changes or something.

Lastly, worry about phoshpates. The phosphates might drop some with the OC dosing, but they might not.

Water changes can help with no3, but it won't likely do much for po4 since there is so much bound into the rock sand sand.

On the other stuff, better/larger/more skimmers do work - I run 3 or 4 skimmers on my tanks. A clip-on light from Home Depot is enough to grow macro in a fuge. Biopellets are a form of OC dosing - like the above recommendations the usage to lower and then to maintain are different but I am not a biopellet aficionado and have no real advice on how to achieve this.

 

[MrGisonni]

Cut back on all the coral food

 

[jda]

Yes, in clarification of my post above, I would not cut back on fish feeding, but I would stop all of the phyto, aminos and coral food.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Need help figuring out improving filtration and nutrient export. I have a 90g sumpless with in-tank refugium, (chaeto, tunze light 24/7, chaetogro dose 1-2/week), Tunze 9004 in-tank skimmer. 3"-4" sand bed and heavy on LR. Tank has been running for years, but actively for last year. 30% water change every 2-3 weeks. Nitrates ~ 30+ and Phosphate .2 with GFO, finally got it to .1 running GFO. I feed two cubes frozen, half sheet nori and small amount of NLS pellet on auto feeder daily. Amino, Phyto, coral food 1-2 week.
I want to get my phosphate close to or under .1 without GFO and Nitrates < 20. I want to do 30% WC every 3 weeks and stretch to 4 weeks if too busy.

Options:
Cut back feeding even more (worried about aggression)
Add a 2nd Refugium light, run 1st 24/7 and 2nd at night. ($100)
Turn on BioPellet reactor (I have one) and use with refugium.
Get a larger skimmer (Tunze 2012, $430)

Others?

Nitrates of 30 and phosphates of 0.2 seem perfect to me.
How do your corals look? If they are good, I wouldn't change anything.