PO4 .2 to .3 or .02 to 0.03? .2 and .3 are really high numbers.
When Malira was over to discuss the issue with his tank and I was measuring his Potassium, he saw my tank.
At this point I was at 5-6ppm Nitrates and about 0.3 ppm Po4 with no significant algae issues anywhere.
When I was at 10ppm Nitrates with around 0.4-0.5ppm Po4 last winter, I did have no significant algae either,
and Reefaholic has seen in person when I popped huge bubble algae in the tank with no effect and no new algae.
I have a lot of trust into that table and I see when I drift off somewhere just by observing the tank.
If I do see odd things, I typically start measuring, like hairy algae on the overflow start becoming restricting flow, or a thin green layer of algae on the rock etc.
Mostly I'm then too low in Nitrates if that is the case, of course compared to the Po4 level on the Chart.
If I do see that I'm pretty much in the yellow area and still do see suspicious algae activity, I start looking on flow of pumps (pump failures), TDS of the RODI (which I screwed to replace the cartridge early enough multiple times last year), skimmer performance etc.
Also said, I do apply Carbon carefully once a while when the yellow becomes too strong, detoxify the tank here and there, and sometimes use GFO (try to avoid that !!!) to get silicates out after DI resin screwup's.
I feel (and read) a lot that Skimmer and bacteria do not take out all the waste that accumulates in the tank, therefore a clean up here and there is good practice and good for the tank.
I did notice also that high Po4 (0.1 and more) levels do make the SPS Coral skin thicker and less vibrant compared to lower levels.
BUT what I actually was trying to say is that remaining in the Ratio, does not guarantee an algae free tank !!!!!
We got to get rid of certain other organic and non organic waste still, that we do not remove with the filter system and method installed. I'm very convinced that, it is absolute important to keep a great diversity of bacteria strains in the tank since the different families and strains of bacteria prefer specific "waste" as their preferred food.
In the past the synonym monoculture was used, which I believe really means "limited cultures", which is a effect that I do see on Malira's tank at the moment. But that's IMO.
-Andre
