So question, can you drop your Nitrate and Phosphate too fast?
I just did a ~30% water change (~30 gallons) yesterday, and when I re-tested for Nitrate and Phosphate, they were 65ppm and 2.0ppm respectively (not a typo). The tank is ~17 years old with Fiji live rock, so I believe at least the high PO4 is probably due to leaching rocks, but can't prove that. But given the numbers, I need to drop PO4 by 99% and NO3 by ~90% from current numbers to get into recommended ranges. So, if I keep doing 30% changes 2-3 times a week, will dropping the chemistry that fast be a big negative? All the other numbers are in normal ranges.
I do have a refugium running with Chaeto doing some growth, but obviously, it's not making much of a dent right now. Also, I started a Bio Pellet reactor at the first of the month, but understand it could take 4-8 weeks to really kick in. Water flow in the sump is filter sock -> Chaeto -> skimmer -> bio pellets/Return pump. (Bio Pellets output is near skimmer input.
Only corals are the original shrooms, zoa's, frogspawn from when I adopted the tank and more recently I've added a frag of zoa's and an acan that seem to be doing good, but are obviously newer. The tank looks great visually, just the issue with nitrate and phosphate. I'm looking to keep the tank as a softie dominated tank with a few LPS, so that gives me a little wiggle room with them, but still, they seem really high right now.
Thanks for any advice.
I just did a ~30% water change (~30 gallons) yesterday, and when I re-tested for Nitrate and Phosphate, they were 65ppm and 2.0ppm respectively (not a typo). The tank is ~17 years old with Fiji live rock, so I believe at least the high PO4 is probably due to leaching rocks, but can't prove that. But given the numbers, I need to drop PO4 by 99% and NO3 by ~90% from current numbers to get into recommended ranges. So, if I keep doing 30% changes 2-3 times a week, will dropping the chemistry that fast be a big negative? All the other numbers are in normal ranges.
I do have a refugium running with Chaeto doing some growth, but obviously, it's not making much of a dent right now. Also, I started a Bio Pellet reactor at the first of the month, but understand it could take 4-8 weeks to really kick in. Water flow in the sump is filter sock -> Chaeto -> skimmer -> bio pellets/Return pump. (Bio Pellets output is near skimmer input.
Only corals are the original shrooms, zoa's, frogspawn from when I adopted the tank and more recently I've added a frag of zoa's and an acan that seem to be doing good, but are obviously newer. The tank looks great visually, just the issue with nitrate and phosphate. I'm looking to keep the tank as a softie dominated tank with a few LPS, so that gives me a little wiggle room with them, but still, they seem really high right now.
Thanks for any advice.