[Dec 8, 2020]
Big update! I decided the sand bed had to go. I could already see that regularly cleaning the sand bed was going to be a major pain and I couldn't quite get the flow high as I would have liked without blowing sand every where.. Pulled all of the water out of the tank into several 32gal garbage cans, pulled the LR and placed it into the various garbage cans and took my vacuum and sucked the bottom clean! Also was able to do a little bit of a re-work on the aquascape.
After all that quarantine, ich still managed to somehow get into the tank. Taking the sand bed out at this same time actually worked out well because it was super easy to catch the fish once the water level got really low. Started the 76 day fallow period a couple weeks ago. All fish being treated again in copper.
On a brighter note, have filled my tank with corals and have the ph, calc and alk steady now. Currently have alk around 8dkh and calcium hovering around 410. Trying out All-For-Reef, but a dose of 50mls per day currently means their largest bottle will only last me 20 days. If this stuff continues to work well I just may continue to use it until they come to market with the powdered version.
With the increased photo period and intensity, I am having a little bit of a GHA breakout on some of my rocks. I have not fed the tank much at all since going fallow. I am thinking its a combination of two things, 1. those specific rocks are leeching phosphates and two potential die off from some of my CUC. Phosphates are reading 0.03, a few days ago and now 0.04 today. Running the last of my regular GFO currently, in a few days once I get my high capacity GFO in, ill run a full canister of that in hopes to lower even more, or at least suck up as much of the leeching phosphates as I can. Nitrates are hovering around 4ppm based on my Red Sea Pro Nitrate test kit. I am having a hard time telling if my readings are accurate though. I run the normal 0 - 4 range test and my color looks to be on the 4ppm or maybe higher. So because of this I run the diluted test (4 - 64 range), and the color looks just like the lowest color level in that range of 4ppm. So either I am doing something wrong or my Nitrates are really at 4ppm. Not sure if anyone has experience with this test kit?
Here are some update pics: