I am a pretty new reefer. I've got a 32G Biocube AIO that's about 7 months old. It cycled beautifully in a month. I had zero phosphate and nitrate for the first month after cycling as I added some fish and corals. I then had a cyano outbreak which got a bit out of control (not too terrible), and a course of chemiclean fixed it right up. I started dosing Microbacter 7 to rebuild my good bacteria afterwards. Immediately after the bought with cyano, my nitrate (~40ppm) and phosphate (~1ppm - not a typo - no decimal) levels went up and nothing I do is making them budge from those levels. I've been trying 3 months to get the levels down and nothing seems to work. I've done many water changes (25-50%, vacuumed out different parts of the tank, daily dosing of NOPOX, added skimmer, etc...). Fish and softies have been fine, LPS and SPS are dead or not looking good. I've got a healthy population of pods and a few "neutral" pests like bristle worms and an asterina star, but no nuisances like mojano, aiptasia, crazy worms, etc)
Initial Setup:
Stock 32G Biocube
Aragonite live sand
~15# Live Rock (purple corraline already populated)
After cycling:
Added Cleanup Crew - Hermit crabs, different snails, serpent star, peppermint shrimp
Slowly added fish: 2 clowns, yellow watchman goby, 2 blue gudgeon (one died after a month or two), lawnmower blenny - other than the gudgeon fish are all happy and healthy from what I can tell
First corals/anemone - all doing well: a couple zoa, rose bubble tip anemone (now 4 of them), GSP, kenya tree, mushroom.
Also (still alive): Ricordia, duncan, blasto, acan. I've had my frammer polyp bailout - still alive on the sandbed.
Nothing added in last 2.5-3 months except replenishing some cleanup crew as I try to stabilize values.
In the back of tank:
Compartment 1: Biocube protein skimmer - emptied every other day, heater
Compartment 2: Stock rack: Biocube filter, Chemipure Elite and Purigen, Chaeto (and light).
Compartment 3: spongy filter (cleaned regularly)
I did use bio-pins initially, but took them out as they seemed to harbor detritus.
Current Levels (all Red Sea test kit, except phosphate):
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79.1 F
pH - 8.2
NH3 - 0 ppm
NO2 - ~0 ppm (very faint pink indicator, maybe 0.05 ppm)
NO3 - 40 ppm? Hard to tell, but a higher than needed level)
PO4 - 1 ppm (Salifert, again, hard to tell, but very high reading)
Alk - 9.2 dKH
Ca - 410 ppm
Mg - 1340 ppm
These values are STABLE. Even a day after a water change, values change very little. Temp increased as we transitioned from winter to spring. I was keeping it at 76-77. I cant keep it that cool now, but it stays 79-80F.
I'm using Red Sea salt, purchased from LFS. I have tested "new" water and found low NO3 and no PO4, so my testing technique/kit does not seem to be the problem.
I've dropped feeding to once daily:
1/8 tsp of TDO Chroma Boost Small pellets
~1/8 cube frozen mysis shrimp or frozen fish stuff
About 2x per week I'll feed the corals with TDO Chroma Boost B
I've also started growing phyto and add ~10mL daily. (this hasn't improved or hurt the NO3 or PO4 levels).
Using NOPOX for the past 6 weeks with no improvement.
Any thoughts? The PO4 is the primary concern - I just do not know where it's coming from. I'm looking for solutions which fit in a biocube. I don't have a large refugium or space for reactors.
Initial Setup:
Stock 32G Biocube
Aragonite live sand
~15# Live Rock (purple corraline already populated)
After cycling:
Added Cleanup Crew - Hermit crabs, different snails, serpent star, peppermint shrimp
Slowly added fish: 2 clowns, yellow watchman goby, 2 blue gudgeon (one died after a month or two), lawnmower blenny - other than the gudgeon fish are all happy and healthy from what I can tell
First corals/anemone - all doing well: a couple zoa, rose bubble tip anemone (now 4 of them), GSP, kenya tree, mushroom.
Also (still alive): Ricordia, duncan, blasto, acan. I've had my frammer polyp bailout - still alive on the sandbed.
Nothing added in last 2.5-3 months except replenishing some cleanup crew as I try to stabilize values.
In the back of tank:
Compartment 1: Biocube protein skimmer - emptied every other day, heater
Compartment 2: Stock rack: Biocube filter, Chemipure Elite and Purigen, Chaeto (and light).
Compartment 3: spongy filter (cleaned regularly)
I did use bio-pins initially, but took them out as they seemed to harbor detritus.
Current Levels (all Red Sea test kit, except phosphate):
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79.1 F
pH - 8.2
NH3 - 0 ppm
NO2 - ~0 ppm (very faint pink indicator, maybe 0.05 ppm)
NO3 - 40 ppm? Hard to tell, but a higher than needed level)
PO4 - 1 ppm (Salifert, again, hard to tell, but very high reading)
Alk - 9.2 dKH
Ca - 410 ppm
Mg - 1340 ppm
These values are STABLE. Even a day after a water change, values change very little. Temp increased as we transitioned from winter to spring. I was keeping it at 76-77. I cant keep it that cool now, but it stays 79-80F.
I'm using Red Sea salt, purchased from LFS. I have tested "new" water and found low NO3 and no PO4, so my testing technique/kit does not seem to be the problem.
I've dropped feeding to once daily:
1/8 tsp of TDO Chroma Boost Small pellets
~1/8 cube frozen mysis shrimp or frozen fish stuff
About 2x per week I'll feed the corals with TDO Chroma Boost B
I've also started growing phyto and add ~10mL daily. (this hasn't improved or hurt the NO3 or PO4 levels).
Using NOPOX for the past 6 weeks with no improvement.
Any thoughts? The PO4 is the primary concern - I just do not know where it's coming from. I'm looking for solutions which fit in a biocube. I don't have a large refugium or space for reactors.