Frankly, if I don’t dose, they will bottom out after a couple of weeks.That should be sufficient to show nitrate & phosphate on a 9 month old system. Do you have a full tank shot with white light showing the uglies before you removed the sandbed.
Unfortunately I didn’t took a photo before removing the sand bed, but to give you an idea, my substrate would be fully covered within a couple of days. Except for the parts that are shaded.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m a bit hesitant on this one. Since I’m not really experienced with a skimmer, I have to dial it in, tune it and fiddle around with the amount of dosing No3 and Po4 again. Not sure if I’d like to change that much in a short period of time if that makes sense.Dosing phytoplankton is good.
I see little need to continue dosing bacteria. If you were running your protein skimmer, it would be a type of carbon dosing to grow bacteria that absorb nutrients that are then removed with protein skimmer. I suggest you use your protein skimmer for gas exchange only and allow wet skimmate to return to tank.