How to get phosphates back down and more in line with nitrates?

[Cv111]

I'm wondering if I'm on track to get my nutrients back in line. I had some chrysophytes that were not going away in my relatively new (~4 month old tank) so I had tried vibrant on somebody's recommendation. At this time I also took my refugium back online as multiple people wrote that vibrant killed their chaeto.

Naturally I had a pretty big nutrient spike (also probably because I treated for some bryopsis with reef flux that popped up once the chrysophytes had calme down--I tried to physically remove as much of it as possible and run my skimmer as wet as possible, but since it all began to die at once, I'm guessing this is where a lot of the nutrients came from)

My fuge is back on now and things are looking okay..I think my NO3 is a bit lower than my it would be if it was in-line with my phosphate level and I'm worried I'll have issues getting it back down with my fuge alone? I've started experimenting with a very tiny amount of GFO to see if that helps at all. Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of the vibrant...everyone recommended to take my chaeto fuge offline and I think that was a big part of where things went wrong. Note: I had a dKH/calcium issue after a bad batch of reef crystals that had probably had some water exposure. I didn't have enough to do a water change w/o it though and I have no corals yet, so I tried that. My overall lighting situation is pretty low as well since I don't have any demanding corals.

Here is the excel sheet i have tracking parameters/other notes & records for the past couple months:

Week	dKH	Calcium (ppm)	Phosphate (ppb)	Nitrate (ppm)	Magnesium (ppm)	Notes
Ideal	7-11	380-450	<30	<0.2	1250-1350
8/14/2020	7.1	475	45.99283096	0.75	NA	Used bad reef crystals; 5.5 dKH mix.
8/21/2020	6.9	480	39.8604535	0.2	NA	Used bad reef crystals; 5.5 dKH mix. New batch arrives next week.
8/28/2020	6.6	435	193.1698901	2.5	NA	Dosed Vibrant on 8/24 to help clear chrysophytes (microscope ID), turned off lights for 3 days 8/25-2/27, removed Chaeto ball; used a good batch of reef crystals dKH 11.1 for water change
9/4/2020	6.2	465	211.5670224	5	1395	Chrysophytes mostly gone, but bryopsis is now taking its place. Added Reef Flux/fluconazole on 8/30. Still dosing Vibrant
9/11/2020	6.4	465	NA	NA	NA	Continued reef flux/fluconazole (no extra doses, just haven't run carbon) and vibrant
9/18/2020	8.2	450	358.7440815	10	1425	Dosed 10.2g of sodium carbonate via ATO on 9/15 to increase dKH by ~3 (will take time to dose all of it). Add RF/fluconazole (1 pill) to bring concentration back up from 2 water changes. Bryopsis almost gone. Continue dosing vibrant til next week & then add Chaeto back to bring nitrate and phosphate back down to normal. Note: dKH after changing water was 8.8
9/25/2020	8.9	445	352.6117041	25	1402.5	Begin removing fluconazole on 9/20 with activated carbon and a large 20% water change on 9/25. Add chaeto 5 days (9/25) after last dose of vibrant (9/20). People say this works okay. dKH = 9.1 after water change
10/2/2020	8.5	435	374.0750252	10	1320	add activated carbon again and do extra large water change--> get rid of all fluconazole. Seeing some cyano start to pop up.
10/9/2020	8.6	435	223.8317774	NA	NA	Started running a small amount of GFO w/ carbon bag. LOTS of blue-green cyano appeared this week--have been siphoning it up, comes off in nice mats/sheets.
10/16/2020	8.1	420	196.2360788	2.5	1305	Note: 2.5 is my best guess for nitrates, actual is probably slightly lower, but still probably above 2 ppm. Cyano has calmed down. Looks like chrysophytes are back? or could be dinos. Plan to take a microscope ID again soon.

 

[Reef.]

Wow for such a new tank you have been busy.
I would pick a method and stick to it for a while.
it’s said po4 should be around 10x less than nitrates so not sure your aim to Match them is a good one.

I think you need to let the tank run for a while and only step in if needs be.

 

[Cv111]

Wow for such a new tank you have been busy.
I would pick a method and stick to it for a while.
it’s said po4 should be around 10x less than nitrates so not sure your aim to Match them is a good one.

I think you need to let the tank run for a while and only step in if needs be.

Yeah, honestly that was my other concern too. There were a few crazy weeks around the time I tried out the vibrant and had a sudden burst of bryopsis... I probably over-reacted. Especially because so much was going on with the bad batch of reef crystals too.

To be clear the tank was a little over 4 months old when the above table started haha.