[Todd L]

Hello all,
A few weeks ago I posted a question about my phosphate levels, and someone recommended I install a phosphate filter which I did. I picked up an Aqualine Phosphate Filter and it seems to have worked well. The level is still not at 0, but pretty close.

Here are my questions/concerns. It seems after thinking about what happened here I came up with some thoughts and wanted to bounce them off of some more experienced minds.

A few months ago I built a HOB fuge that I intended to use more as an algae filter. I modeled it after some of the HOB units i saw online. I set it on a narrow base I also built that fits behind my tank so it sits slightly higher than my main tank and simply drains through a bulkhead. In it I placed LR, about a 3" sand bed, chaeto, and a few other types I can't remember. I modified my skimmer so that the output fed the fuge.

At first everything seemed to be working really well. The Maidens hair algae I purchased seemed to flourish at first, but over time I noticed all of the algae I had in there seemed like it was disappearing.
At about the same time I noticed this, I had an incredible amount of algael growth on my glass, which I found was fed by the excess amounts of phosphates and my recent upgrade to T5 lighting. The minds here are what directed me to get the phosphates taken care of which I thank you for, but I needed to know why the phosphates got so highin the first place. I had to assume they were always there as I had been overfeeding, but why the sudden increase!

When I would rotate my chaeto, I noticed some of it seemed like it was decomposing along with some of my other algae in there. I finally took it all out of the fuge, and placed what was left in my main tank which at this point is all pretty much gone. So now as I write this, my fuge sits empty except for the bed.

Last night I decided to try to measure my flow rate out out of the skimmer, which fed the fuge, and it seems like it is at best about 20gph. Not nearly enough from what I gather from reading posts here! I'm assuming my phosphates increased due to decomposition of my algae due in turn to poor flow.

Ok....sorry for the long post here, but my questions are...

I have a lot of (I think?) caulerpa in my main tank already.
Should I remove it and place it all in my fuge? I'd like to be able to go back to just the LR look in my main tank anyway.
I know if I want to have the fuge be effective I need to increase the flow a LOT...to maybe about 80 or so gph at least? That's do-able with some re-configuration.
Should I just forget the fuge idea altogether? Is having algae in my main tank good enough? Is what I have any good?

Also.....it seems a 20gph for my skimmer seems barely good either...what should a good flow be for a skimmer

Tank parameters- NO2- 0, Ammonia- 0, PH- 8.2, Alk- normal range, NO3- <3, PO4- .1. Not perfect, but remember I do not keep corals.

Thanks for your input and huge apologies for the long post!!! Attached is a pic of the algae I have in my main tank.