Low Nitrates Newish tank

[Distracted_Nerd]

My Reef tank has been going for about 3 months now.. still very new but i have made it past the ugly stage. I had a tank about 10 years ago so i knew kind of what to expect along the way, however things have changed or become more readily available. I am having an issue with my Nitrates sitting at 1ppm.. and ive been feeding a ton and have a pretty decent bioload.

I am feeding about 3 frozen cubes a day.. over 3 feedings a day. Also feeding about 1/8 of a sheet of nori and 10 ml of zooplankton and 20ml of AB+

I think i am over filtering but im open to anything. My last tank i ran filter socks and didnt run a skimmer until month 5 and had a very hard time controlling nitrates they were always at 50

Reefer 350 G2+ 90 Gal total volume

Filtration:
Reef Octopus 110
Reefmat 500
Fuge (Some Chaeto and tons of GHA growing here) - think this may be were my nitrates are going
80lbs of Sand
80lbs of rock

BioLoad(Fish):
6 Chromis
1 Tomini Tang
1 One Spot Fox Face
2 clowns
1 yellow and purple wrasse
1 Flame Angle
1 yellow watchman goby
1 Tiger Pistol Shrimp
20 assorted Snails
20 assorted hermits
1 tuxedo urchin
1 fighting conch
emerald crab

Corals(number of heads)
2 indo torches
1 frogspawn
1 octospawn
4 hammer
2 stylo
2 birdsnest
2 Duncan with 6 new heads
1 toadstool
1 very sad cyphastrea
1 elegance coral
1" gonapora (~30 heads im guessing)

Parameters:

78*F
1.026
ph 7.9
Nitrates 1
Phosphates .05
7.9 dKH
390 calc
1360 Mag

These numbers were yesterday.

Corals and fish are happy but I wanna get out in front of any issues

 

[CasperOe]

You're definetly well kitted out when it comes to filtration on this tank - you'll be happy with that down the line!

Are you running any sort of controller / timer on your tank? One thing you can play around with is how long/how often you turn the light on for on your refugium. This is basically a filter that you can tune based on how long it is on for- or how powerful your lights are.

Alternatively, you can switch off your skimmer x-amount of hours every day although i would be inclined to go with the fuge trick for a number of reasons (aeration being the main one!)

Does any of your livestock show any signs of not thriving in this low nutrient environment?

 

[Distracted_Nerd]

You're definetly well kitted out when it comes to filtration on this tank - you'll be happy with that down the line!

Are you running any sort of controller / timer on your tank? One thing you can play around with is how long/how often you turn the light on for on your refugium. This is basically a filter that you can tune based on how long it is on for- or how powerful your lights are.

Alternatively, you can switch off your skimmer x-amount of hours every day although i would be inclined to go with the fuge trick for a number of reasons (aeration being the main one!)

Does any of your livestock show any signs of not thriving in this low nutrient environment?

Livestock is doing well. I can do 12 8 or 6 hours on fuge light. I have it on 12 now and had it on 24 during the uglies. I will step it down to 8.

 

[CasperOe]

Livestock is doing well. I can do 12 8 or 6 hours on fuge light. I have it on 12 now and had it on 24 during the uglies. I will step it down to 8.

Just remember when you adjust things, do it slowly - and only do one thing at the time so that you can verify if anything is changing- and if so, what caused the change!

You might see a slight change in PH when adjusting the light on your refugium. Alternatively, you can set it up so that it is only one every second night or so. There's plenty of adjustments you can be doing.

Alternatively, you can feed more- it just seems to be a waste somewhat if it can be avoided.

You also have the options of starting to dose nitrate to your tank, but it should not be something that was needed on a new tank like yours.

 

[Distracted_Nerd]

I wanted to update everyone. The nutrients are still detecting low. There is cyano and gha growing in fuge. Current light cycle is 8 hours may lower to 6. Turning off skimmer for 8 hours a day, may go to 12. The algae that is growing on my back glass is turning white. I left the algae for urchin and tomini tang I also have what looks to be green and brown diatoms.. could just be algae tho. Pics attached.

Just looking for some advice for a way forward. I do understand nothing good happens fast in a reef tank