Low Nitrate / Phosphate - Lots of Sea Lettuce

[niccumec]

Nitrates and Phosphates dropping - don’t want to induce Dinos or Cyano!!! Nitrates had been running 4-5ppm and steadily dropped over the past couple weeks.

Nitrate - 0.2 (Tropic Marin) | 0.0 Hanna Checker
Phosphate - 0.015 (Red Sea Pro) | Has always read 0.0 Hanna Checker

Low bio load in 3 month old tank. 2 Clowns, 20 small snails CUC, Red Banded Pistol Shrimp, benthic copepods. (No coral yet)

Just yesterday I added a small One Spot Firefox, Firefish Exquisite, Royal Gramma, and Yellow Watchman Goby to acclimation box (just finished QT).

I do also have an external Refugium with some Chaeto and Red Gracilaria. Some sea lettuce must have hitch hiked with the Chaeto as I have noticed lots of sea lettuce in display tank.

I am thinking that with such a low bio load that the macro algae are depleting Nitrate / Phosphate too much.

Actions??
1. Wait, be patient, let new fish increase bio load and hope levels come back up
2. Dose something for nitrates - recommendations?
3. Reduce / Turn off skimmer
4. Add Mexican Turbo and/or Urchin to get sea lettuce under control - need to do this anyway…
5. Feed heavier
6. Reduce lights - Currently running GHL Mitras at only 20%
7. Other / All of the above

Normally I would just wait it out, but I have read too many threads on R2R about the dreaded Dinos and Cyano. Just want to be proactive and hope to prevent an outbreak of the bad stuff!

 

[FUNGI]

8. Feed heavy ?

 

[niccumec]

Update. Still running very low Nitrate and Phosphates. So far I have done the following:
1. Reduced skimmer - still on all the time aerating the water, but running bubble height low so as not to produce too much skimmate.
2. Feeding heavy (2x frozen brine, 2x Reef Jerky)
3. Added 5 Mexican Turbo snails (only ordered 2…) and 1 Tuxedo Urchin - These guys are mowing down the sea lettuce (see pics below). All rocks were completely covered with leafy sea lettuce 16 days ago!
4. Reduced Refugium lighting from 8 hrs to 5 hours at night.
5. Harvested ~1/2 Cheeto and Gracilaria Red macro algae from refugium.

All is looking better, hopefully the Nitrates and Phosphates will trend up after all of this. I am currently reading ~1ppm Nitrate and ~0.015 Phosphates based on Red Sea Pro - Still reading 0 for both on Hanna Checkers.