So. I have a Deskmate (4.8 gallon) that I have had set up coming up on 4 months. I know that this is generally considered “too early” to carbon dose. As a new reefer I don’t really understand why that is. My no3 runs 40-50 per week before my roughly 50% water change (my math assumes a 20 ppm nitrate after water change). I want to reduce my water change, but I’m not opposed to continuing what I’m doing currently. Nonetheless my phosphate stays pretty constant at 0.03 and I was running a phosguard packet, and have just switched it out for the chemipure blue nano, and I’m running a reef glass skimmer with a very wet skim mate (I’m not getting much removed in my skim mate I do not believe, it is only very slightly green). The tank only has a small clown fish, but a fair amount of corals - a small acan colony (10-12 heads guessing) 2 lepto frags, a cyphastrea frag, a ricordea, a Rhodactis, 4 heads of candy cane, and a gsp on the back wall. I know that I’m going to be told that I shouldn’t carbon dose, and it’s not that I disagree, I just don’t understand why, or what else I can do to reduce my nitrate increase weekly. I have a fair amount of rock for the size of tank, and more bio media in the back, so I do not see that as being a limiting factor. Thoughts?
