Experimenting is fun! Adding phyto can't hurt, unless you're using a dead culture or adding a TON. That said, you may not see a big difference in the pods, it takes a LOT of phyto to grow pods (when people are culturing brine or copepods, the phyto is added at a high enough dose that the whole culture is bright green.)
I think you're doing well by allowing bypass water to the 'fuge instead of filtered water.
Might make sense to come up with another food source to try out, too. Finely ground flakes or one of the powdered coral foods, in low doses, right in the 'fuge is what I would try. And/or just get more food and/or feed the fish more. With such a light bioload in such a big tank and good nutrient removal, there's no reason to be skimpy on food. If you start seeing algae problems or other nutrient issues, you can just cut back again.
I'd also get as much rubble as you can scrounge, golfball and smaller sizes, and put it in your 'fuge. Keep a pile in the back corner of your display, and once a week or so, swap a few handfuls of pieces.
Lots of things to try.
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Inconveniencing marine life since 1992
"It is my personal belief that reef aquaria should be thriving communities of biodiversity, representative of their wild counterparts, and not merely collections of pretty specimens growing on tidy clean rock shelves covered in purple coralline algae." (Eric Borneman)
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