Nitrates have dropped down to ~0.25. It actually looks barely above zero on my Red Sea pro kit.
Hey,
Long story short. I'm a new reefer, been in the hobby for about 7-8 months. I have a 200L system. In the past I dosed NOPOX, recently transitioned to NP Pro, struggled to get rid of cyano/brown algae. Finally did. Now nitrates are high up at 25-40ppm and phos at 0.15-0.20.
I did not run filter sock and had 1 big block of marine pure and some algae in first section of the sump (this is where water comes in - I know bad idea, its all about experimentation, was only creating some flow to prevent detritus settling in that section). Next was skimmer and then had my vectra. In skimmer area I put another thin MP block and in the return section I had about 10 marine pure cubes.
Recently I was looking for siporax or matrix but I was advised to run denitrate from seachem. Three weeks now running that also running aquaforest fluidized reactor with zeomix, carbon and phos minus. I have also removed the refugium and cleaned the sump thoroughly.
Should I still patiently wait? You reckon it would take a little longer for bacteria to colonize the marine pure blocks? or are they just clogged?
SPS now slowly got back the polyp extenstion after gravel vacs and water changes. But LPS doesn't seem to like, especially the hammers dont extend and when I just touch the polyps bail out of the skeleton (is there any underlying issue), Gonis are doing fantastic though.
During all this the skimmer broke, its a red star fish skimmer with Jebao DC-3000 pump. Got a replacement pump which lasted 2 weeks broke again. How reliable are these?
Well, should I buy more siporax to lower nitrates and phosphates or just wait for a couple of months and sort the skimmer out first?
Please advise guys. Thanks.