Phosphate and Nitrates at 0 in nano reef! Good or bad?

[RadinJ]

Hello all!
I have a fluval 13.5 and ive been following the complete Red Sea recipe which ive attached below, im giving 4.6 mls of coral AB+ mixed with a bit of reef roids (usual target feed but sometimes spread throughout the tank) and 1.1 mls of nopox, plus running the coral life 2.0 skimmer and have chemi pure blue carbon filter media. Today I finally bought the Salifert test kits and checked both my phosphate and nitrates are at 0. In the red sea recipe it say i have to keep a 0.5 nitrate and 0.02 phosphate. Are my parameters at zero ok or if not what should i do?
Thanks!

 

[drewwCh]

0 nitrates and phosphates is generally bad because corals need those nutrients in the water. Many people also get dinos when nutrients bottom out. Try skimming drier and removing the chemipure. Also try stopping dosing nopox. What livestock do you have?

 

[mdb_talon]

If they are really zero that is not good. Better to be higher than the params they gave you than zero.

 

[RadinJ]

I have 1 hammer head, 1 torch, 1 sun coral, 1 flat solid red sps (sorry dont know the name), 1 rainbow clove coral, and one gladiator clown.
Should i stop the skimmer for a week and see how the prams do? Because im feeding a good amount daily! Also what are dinos?

 

[blasterman]

0 phosphate is problematic for SPS. 0 nitrate can really cause problems with soft coral.

For some reason the issue is compounded in small tanks. Likely because there's less water volume to store trace levels of each.

Reducing skimming or just turning it off will elevate nitrate. More reef roids will spike phosphate.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Not 0. Read as below 0
These readings are done from the water source at the time. Phosphate levels and nitrate levels dont stay steady. They are fluxuating.
Say you fed the tank.
You put ur hands in.
Your skimmer hasent been cleaned and isnt performing like it normally does.

Dont chase #s. Focus on no algae. Feeding fish and growing coral.
Hths
D

 

[RadinJ]

Well the other problem i have is green hair algae, ive been dealing with it for soo long since i had a period of not maintaining my tank well. I started nopox which i couldn't tell if it helped and i put in chemipure blue which helped stop the growth of the algea. But when ripping them off manually didn't get rid of them I started using Vibrant reef cleaner which even with a single dose i saw very good results in terms of algea. Now considering all this is the 0 numbers because of algea? And should i stop skimming for now?