Water parameters

[MandS]

Alright ya'all. Lost all of my fish to velvet in the kast few days of August. After only have my tank set up since the beginning of April. So since then my tank has been fishless. I do have a small nem who is super happy at the moment ☺. An emerald crab, coral banded shrimp, and a few snails. My parameters are as follows:
Temp - 78
Salinity - 1.025
Nitrates - 10-15
Phosphates - 1
Magnesium - 1380
pH - 8.3
Calcium - 450
dKH - 8
I went through an episode with GHA. Which after removing by hand and scrubbing my rock with a toothbrush I finally overcame that mess. Now I know my Phosphates are high and my Nutrates need to be reduced which I started dosing NoPox to try reducing that way as well as weekly water changes. My question is this. What would you do first.... finally get some corals in the tank or fish? I do have a quarantine tank for my fish before adding them to my DT. Definitely do NOT want another episode with velvet, that is an expensive experience.

 

[Quietman]

In the past (as I've done myself) I would've just said why not start with both corals and fish. Do a slow build up of livestock and let your system adjust to load and yourself to learn how it reacts and adjust water changes, skimmer settings, dosing, etc.

But lately I've been wondering if just adding corals first and letting them grow to a fair size (6 months or more) before adding any fish might be a better way to go. Get corals growing and learn mineral mgmt in your water without all that fish poop and possible diseases getting in the way. Then you have corals that will help with nutrient mgmt when you add fish.

I know the first works as it's what most do (including myself on this tank) but a few out there are primarily corals (with maybe one fish or one pair) and I just wonder if that might be easier. Still...hard for a new reefer wanting fish and corals to wait for one. Would've been for me. Next tank though, think I'm going with the second as a maturation process.

Oh and good job on sticking with it through a wipe-out. You can't ever lose if you keep getting off the floor (or sand bed) and coming back for more.

 

[Dkmoo]

Ur nitrates are fine, phosphate are high but not a deal breaker. These are not the causes of velvet so I wouldn't worry about that. Dosing artificial bottles to get something changes is a short term answer that doesn't help with long-term stability

High levels of nutrients does cause more gha to grow but nutrients also help coral. And the truth of the matter is that algae will grow when there is real estate for it to grow, which, in a new rock and new tank, there is plenty. In the ocean no3 is almost undetectable yet algae flourish, right? Also, algae prefers ammonia, so chances are they absorb them before your nitrifying bacterial even has a chance to convert them to nitrate. This is also part of the reason why people have problems of "0 nitrate but bad gha problem"

The real deterrent to gha growth is a mature rock full or microfauna, grazers, coraline, etc, that will both crowd out gha and eat also eat the new sprouts before they grow to plague proportions. Unfortunately, in a tank, thebonly thing that gets u there is time and letting nature do its thing.

In thes short term, I would suggest a refugium and just let the GHA grow in there while at the same time add more grazers + scrubbing/physical removal. Every strand of gha growing in the fuge is 1 less strand growing in your tank and it will naturally bring down your no3/po4. The fuge also help qd diversity from the amphi and copapods, which further helps with stability.