Can't keep nitrates and phosphates up. Insights??

[sugar]

if you didn't have those no3 and po4 test kits, then you would never have even suspected an issue, right?

Amen!!

I'll do some reading up, like you said. One of the things I love most about this hobby is learning about the biology and chemistry (I have a Bachelor of Science in Biology!), and I just enjoy it. I love reading about the facts and seeing it happen before me.

 

[sugar]

I’m in the same boat as you constantly dosing nitrates and phosphate solution to keep my nutrients up. I’m also monitoring daily with Hanna checkers because there will be a shift where rock and sand stop absorbing so I need to catch that when it happens

Yes the shift! That's what I'm worried about too. Trying to fix something then the tide changes on me. Best of luck to you!! We'll get there

 

[sugar]

I wanted to post an update!

Last week I had readings of 5.3 for nitrate and 0.05 for phosphate, woohoo. It had been a long, long time since I had seen any detectable amount of either, but I learned that this can be OK. I just wasn't sure if there was/could be a problem or if I was potentially (slowly) starving my system, though the corals, coralline, macro (and GHA) seemed to be fine.

Still, I had let the filter floss sit for longer between changes (more like 5-7 days, instead of every other day), increased fish food slightly, but really just added things like Reef-Roids, the PhytoChrom, and CoralAmino into the mix.

Yesterday, I had readings of 9.5 for nitrate and 0.10 for phosphate, lol.

So, I'll be doing a 5 gallon (roughly 25%) WC today to bring those down a bit, and maybe now I will keep on with the feeding regime but go back to changing the filter floss more often. I'll do that for a bit, check numbers one more time, and if it's all good them we'll keep on with that and not worry about those numbers, unless the tank gives me a reason to check.

Thank you all for your advice. I learned a ton from this thread!