New Tank - Battling Nitrate or confusion

[Gadbery]

Good Morning,

My tank is about 2 months old. Started sterile with bottled bacteria. Had small diatoms burst after cycle. Added pods, snails, clownfish. waited a month and added goby and pistol shrimp. Just got my first beginnings of green/brown hair algae. I got few more snails and tossed in 15 tiny blue hermit crabs. So far they are keeping algae burst at bay. I do get film algae and some brown algae on the glass, i clean glass every 1-2 days.

Question, my Nitrate is almost 0 (nyos tested at 1ppm) Ideally i want 5-10ppm stable. Now tank is new so purposely upping nitrate seems counter intuitive as it would just fuel algae more.
I know i have nitrates being consumed by algae so my level isn't actually 1 as its higher it just being consumed. My torch corals are not as leggy as i would like, i am thinking it may be low nitrate doing this. I am running filter socks and Skimmer. Should i not be running these yet? Should i just step back and chill and let the tank balance itself out as i know its new and needs time. Doing weekly 10ish percent water changes. feed pellets in the am and frozen food in pm (just enough for fish to consume)

Parameters
1.025 salinity
8 DKH (slowly raising this to be 9dkh with larger weekly water changes as i went 2 weeks with no water change and it dropped down to 8)
400 CA
1470 MAG
1ppm Nitrate
0.02 Phosphate

 

[Fish Think Pink]

Good Morning,

My tank is about 2 months old. Started sterile with bottled bacteria. Had small diatoms burst after cycle. Added pods, snails, clownfish. waited a month and added goby and pistol shrimp. Just got my first beginnings of green/brown hair algae. I got few more snails and tossed in 15 tiny blue hermit crabs. So far they are keeping algae burst at bay. I do get film algae and some brown algae on the glass, i clean glass every 1-2 days.

Question, my Nitrate is almost 0 (nyos tested at 1ppm) Ideally i want 5-10ppm stable. Now tank is new so purposely upping nitrate seems counter intuitive as it would just fuel algae more.
I know i have nitrates being consumed by algae so my level isn't actually 1 as its higher it just being consumed. My torch corals are not as leggy as i would like, i am thinking it may be low nitrate doing this. I am running filter socks and Skimmer. Should i not be running these yet? Should i just step back and chill and let the tank balance itself out as i know its new and needs time. Doing weekly 10ish percent water changes. feed pellets in the am and frozen food in pm (just enough for fish to consume)

Parameters
1.025 salinity
8 DKH (slowly raising this to be 9dkh with larger weekly water changes as i went 2 weeks with no water change and it dropped down to 8)
400 CA
1470 MAG
1ppm Nitrate
0.02 Phosphate

Time is magic.

Feed fish heavier if you'd like numbers to climb bit higher naturally.

Recap above: 2 month old tank with torch corals... Time is magic. You're doing the right things, and its okay to chill a little to enjoy the holidays and allow tank to settle. Time is magic.

 

[Gadbery]

Time is magic.

Feed fish heavier if you'd like numbers to climb bit higher naturally.

Recap above: 2 month old tank with torch corals... Time is magic. You're doing the right things, and its okay to chill a little to enjoy the holidays and allow tank to settle. Time is magic.

will feeding more boost those values or will the algae just boom and absorb all the extra nutrients lol.

Ya, torches weren't the plan, but guy had them available really cheap as i was grabbing zoas. So here i am 2 torches, 3 hammers, and some zoas.

I guess all i should be concerned with is corals are alive and not dying, nutrients arnt low enough to create slime issues, and not having huge algae blooms. Ill just let it ride at this point, slowely add more snails and crabs as i find the algae load start growing past clean up crews capabilities.