I’m baffled on nutriets

TLO45

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So I’m dealing with Cyano and have been trying to get a hold and stabilize my nitrates and phosphates. In trying to make sense of what I’m dealing with I have decided to test nitrates and phosphates daily at the same time daily to get an idea what areas I may need to deal with. That being said my nutrients seem to vary considerably daily. Perhaps this normal but with the amount of water in the system (450 gallons) I’m thinking something else is at bay.
I test alkalinity, nitrates and phosphate every morning before lights come on and any feeding for the day. One day I may have 4-5 nitrates and .07 phosphate and the very next day 25 nitrates and .13 phosphate. The following morning nitrates will drop back to 3-5 and phosphates.05-.07.
I have been trying to get nitrates up by dosing ESV’s Nitrate but at 1/2 recommended dose to raise nitrates 1ppm so I feel I’m way under the amount to have it jump 15-20 points.
I feed 1x a day with rinsed frozen mysis and 1 sheet of nori for tangs every other day
Tank is roughly 3 years old. I am in the process of removing the sand bed slowly which I know can release nutrients but I do a 50 gallon water change once a week and remove some sand. I can’t believe this would make nutrient levels go up one day and down the next. Any ideas ? I’m wide open for suggestions!
 

Heres_doe_

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I don't know as i been in this hobby just over a year but what are you testing with. And also i think you need more details about your setup.
 
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TLO45

TLO45

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Hanna checkers. New batteries just installed.
what else do you want me to include?
 

Crustaceon

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Siphon out all of the sand (you can pull all at once and it's preferable in this case), add some beneficial bacteria (Dr. Tims, Seachem, Microbactr, etc., watch the water cloud up (this is normal), wait a week and things will likely be stabilized. Make sure your tank has plenty of flow and direct a majority at the bottom and some at the surface for oxygenation purposes. Expect nutrients to be really low but DO NOT dose nitrates or phosphates to compensate. Just feed as normal. Once nitrates naturally creep up to a stable 10ppm, you can add either new sand (best) or THOUROUGHLY rinsed old sand back in (the garden hose-supplied water in your 5g rinsing bucket needs to be crystal clear after stirring the sand around). What you're doing here is removing as much favorable cyano habitat as possible and flooding the system with a healthy dose of beneficial bacteria, which isn't picky where it sets up shop. When you add sand back in, the beneficial bacteria will beat any cyano to the punch in propagating through the sand and keeping nitrates around 10ppm will ensure water parameters are favorable to denitrifying bacteria, which will nearly always outcompete cyano in that range.
 

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