Crushed Coral

You don't want to cover your existing substrate with new substrate or you stand the chance of smothering your bacteria and sand critters. Also, if you put sand on top of crushed coral, it will eventually end up underneath your crushed coral as it will sift through.

 

Do you have your own ro/di or are getting it from somewhere? If you have that bad of an algae problem and are reading .5 PO4, you have a SERIOUS phosphate problem coming in from somewhere.

 

I have cc substrate lol i had algae growing on it to so i turn it over while I'm siphoning
that helps a lot
also i took out some of the bigger shells the other day so there would only be small and medium sized ones

i dont have that much of a problem with algae and i use charcoal filtered water
a ro/di system isn't exactly in the budget of a 13 year old

 

Yeah.....being a waste product.....How often do you feed your tank?

 

I have my own RO/DI... it is a dual pass di on top of that.

I only feed once a day.

also the algae is not out of control but it could get out of control.

0.5ppm is High? i thought the target was around <0.2 ppm?

 

The target is 0. Well, that what it should read, because that's about as accurate as a home test will get. If your trying to mimic natural seawater, the target would be .02 - .03. .5 is pretty high IMHO. Keep in mind you are probably higher than the .5 and are getting a false reading, due to the algae using it up.
How much are you feeding in that day? If your feeding every day, it should be very, very light. What are you feeding?

 

im feeding maybe (and i put emphasis on the maybe) 12 tiny pellets to 3 b/g chromis and whatever ends up on the bottom is eaten by the hermits and bristle worms.

The phosphate test is so darn hard to read so it could be between 0-0.5.... the colour change is so light.

 

It's not the crushed coral. The tank is still new. What type of cleanup crew do you have?

 

this is what im thinking, that it is new.

5 black turbos
5 astreas
10 blue legged hermits
1 emerald crab

I also noticed nothing eats the crap that is growing the most (the thick brown slime). the green stuff, heck everyone is muching on that stuff.