30g NUVO mixed reef water chemistry

[pdxnanoreef]

Hi,

 

I'm looking to keep a mixed reef dominated mostly by LPS coral with a couple sps pieces up top, probably a forest fire digi and maybe a stylo of some sort. Something easy that can take some nutrients.  The tank is about a month old and is lit by 1 kessil A360w at 75%/50%. My water parameters are:

nitrate: 0

phosphate: 0.04

nitrite: 0

ammonia: 0

alk: 7-8dkh.

cal: 420

 

I have a 300g sps dominated tank and these parameters are identical because all the rock and some of the corals came out of my sps tank. Should I try and raise my nitrates to around 5-10ppm and keep my phosphates low around 0.04 ppm? I took out most of my chalices, hammers, acans, zoas in my sps tank because I felt like they never really grew much and some started to slowly die. I suspect that the water in my sps tank is to clean for these corals to thrive so hopefully in this nuvo tank I can setup a better environment for them. Where should I keep my nitrates and phosphates? Should I add more fish?  Currently have a pair of small gold nugget maroons and a tiny juvi leopard wrasse. Thanks. 

[seabass]

Eventually that wrasse will outgrow your tank and the maroon pair will likely make choosing tank mates difficult.  I'd actually think that they'd be better choices for your larger tank.

 

That said, I wouldn't necessarily suggest trying to raise nitrate to 10 ppm.  It's more a matter of it not being a limiting factor; so it should at least be detectable.  More livestock/feeding will introduce more nutrients (nitrate and phosphate).  However, this plan could potentially result in an unwanted algae bloom.

 

I feel that you should continue to try to keep phosphate down to no more than 0.03 ppm.  However, if you just want higher nitrate levels, you might even consider dosing nitrate.  I should be doing the same as my nutrient levels are super low (with limited water changes).