So the tank is about 6 months old. Started with dry rock but live sand. Salt-1.025 mag-1350 ph- 8.2 alk- 12.7 (I know it’s a little high we’ve been doing water changes to reduce it I just don’t want to take it down drastically and stress the livestock) and phosphate is reading at 0 which is odd because there has to be phosphate for algae to grow. But maybe the algae is eating it too fast to even get a reading?
I think you had great comment on the algae, I just wanted to point out:
1) How did you get your alk so high? Did you dose or do you use a salt with high alk?
2) Phosphates at 0 can be normal with dry rock as there is a period the rock absorb phosphates that can slowly leach later on. The algae are probably growing on it. Mine took 10 months before I started reading phosphates. However, beware of because that period also puts you at risk of Dinoflagelates. Part of the game.