A question to all reefers!

BRS
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watchguy123 said:
Well if I understand correctly, @Russ265 describes his first line of treatment is GAC and @Diesel attributes his skimmer. It's fascinating because I don't know that either directly remove phosphates, they work on organics. I'm not sure if the organics specifically lead to excess phosphate.

I have always thought that bacteria remove the majority of nitrates and phosphates (both labeled as nutrients). You don't need carbon dosing for the bacteria to thrive. Live rock, dsb, things like siporax are areas where bacteria thrive. Lots of organics come from coral and invertebrates. Fish give poop. Socks, water changes, skimmers and algae all aid in nutrient export as well as bacteria. Food absolutely breaks down eaten or not, into carbon, nitrates and phosphates. It is certainly more complicated than I can delineate.

I guess I am surprised to think of GAC removing phosphates. And I thought virtually all skimmers, regardless of brand, removed about 30% of DOC assuming it is dialed in.

I do agree that you need bacteria and you need some sort of balance between nitrates and phosphates although I don't believe the redfield ratio is necessarily the correct ratio in ocean or reef tank water. It is interesting that we have no ability to evaluate the absolute numbers or concentration of bacteria or even strains of bacteria in our tanks.

@twilliard you asked a simple question. And yet the reef tanks we spend so much time, energy and expense on; we think we know what takes place inside of them until someone asks a basic question.
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Agreed! Now lets talk about what happens inside them ;) I did ask a basic question. Seems a lot do not know the answer.
 
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Top Shelf Aquatics
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
And I venture that it comes from much more than food. In my reef it's easier to control. In my son's tank it rises faster than I can get rid of it. About 180g system with 7 small fish dosing vodka, aggressive skimming, gac, macro algae, and a vinegar denitrator. Been feeding once a day or 2 small feedings for last 4 months maybe. It was fowlr for a few years prior to this with huge bioload and slacked maintenance. I think I'm just playing catch up with leaching po4. Right now today it is down to 2.23 but no3 is down to 0. A bit of redfield ratio? Lol. I'm trying to bring it back to a mixed softy reef but it's gone be a while. There are actually some coral living in that right now believe it or not.
 
Triggreef said:
And I venture that it comes from much more than food. In my reef it's easier to control. In my son's tank it rises faster than I can get rid of it. About 180g system with 7 small fish dosing vodka, aggressive skimming, gac, macro algae, and a vinegar denitrator. Been feeding once a day or 2 small feedings for last 4 months maybe. It was fowlr for a few years prior to this with huge bioload and slacked maintenance. I think I'm just playing catch up with leaching po4. Right now today it is down to 2.23 but no3 is down to 0. A bit of redfield ratio? Lol. I'm trying to bring it back to a mixed softy reef but it's gone be a while. There are actually some coral living in that right now believe it or not.
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Did you just say a level of no4 at 2.2??
 
Tidal Gardens
watchguy123 said:
Well if I understand correctly, @Russ265 describes his first line of treatment is GAC and @Diesel attributes his skimmer. It's fascinating because I don't know that either directly remove phosphates, they work on organics. I'm not sure if the organics specifically lead to excess phosphate.

I have always thought that bacteria remove the majority of nitrates and phosphates (both labeled as nutrients). You don't need carbon dosing for the bacteria to thrive. Live rock, dsb, things like siporax are areas where bacteria thrive. Lots of organics come from coral and invertebrates. Fish give poop. Socks, water changes, skimmers and algae all aid in nutrient export as well as bacteria. Food absolutely breaks down eaten or not, into carbon, nitrates and phosphates. It is certainly more complicated than I can delineate.

I guess I am surprised to think of GAC removing phosphates. And I thought virtually all skimmers, regardless of brand, removed about 30% of DOC assuming it is dialed in.

I do agree that you need bacteria and you need some sort of balance between nitrates and phosphates although I don't believe the redfield ratio is necessarily the correct ratio in ocean or reef tank water. It is interesting that we have no ability to evaluate the absolute numbers or concentration of bacteria or even strains of bacteria in our tanks.

@twilliard you asked a simple question. And yet the reef tanks we spend so much time, energy and expense on; we think we know what takes place inside of them until someone asks a basic question.
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an absolute TON of good points here.

GAC does not remove phosphate. It removes organic phosphorus. GFO does nothing to phosphorus. Just phosphate.

Lots of life does indeed consume phosphate. The zooxanthellae or symbiodinium in coral need a small amount of it in pairing with nitrate to do this. Algae also use both.

While the 16:1 ratio redfield theory promotes is a good guideline, I will agree that it is not exact ime. I still think it is a solid baseline as flawed as it is. I experimented flopping redfield with a po4/nitrate (not really. more like 5:1) and received some disasterous results. (gha, cyano, brown coral, the works)

I will say this...
If i let my nitrate get burned up and it goes to 0. my po4 will rise from .02-.04 to .08-.1.
Upon bumping nitrate to 5ppm i see it drop over a couple days back to where it lies dormant.

i have no filter socks or skimmer. So my gettup puts more eggs in the GAC basket.

hope that clears it up. By all means, correct me or shoot it down. I'd love more ideas why. But this is the strategy ive executed for this tank.
 
I probably over feed and that's where most of my phosphate comes from. I tried biopellets and vinegar dosing and as mentioned before, it did great on nitrates but not as well as phosphates. I now keep it simple. For removal I use WC macroalgae and lathanium chloride and couldn't be happier. I've tried rowaphos with some success but too much and the corals are not happy. I like the exact control that LC provides.
 
BRS
jt17 said:
I probably over feed and that's where most of my phosphate comes from. I tried biopellets and vinegar dosing and as mentioned before, it did great on nitrates but not as well as phosphates. I now keep it simple. For removal I use WC macroalgae and lathanium chloride and couldn't be happier. I've tried rowaphos with some success but too much and the corals are not happy. I like the exact control that LC provides.
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Phosphates come from food whether eaten or not. It's just not over feeding. But obviously over feeding makes it all that more abundant. That is why good husbandry is important with livestock.

Lanthanum chloride is interesting. The consensus that I gathered reading the various threads here and in other forums is that :1) filtration/removal of lanthanum chloride and its precipitation with phosphate is crucial to the well being of the tank both in regards to fish well being (it seems to clog up gills I believe) amd 2) the precipitant may leach out phosphate over time if not removed; 3) it allows for gross control of phosphates not fine control and at somewhere around .1 ppm and then you'll probably need to switch to gfo. The filtration and removal of lanthanum chloride and the precipitant with phosphate is somewhat demanding and requires care.
 
i think my strategy is more inline with randy's writeup about organic phosphorus breaking down in to phosphate.

it happens to be that his writeup is exactly what i have observed from my own experiences.

He mentions skimming, but im sure GAC binds it as well.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/
 
twilliard said:
I havent seen many removal methods!
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Organic carbon dosing (including biopellets and soluble organics) to drive bacterial uptake (also drives growth of higher organisms such as corals), skimmers and GAC to remove organics and bacteria, various types of binders (lanthanum, aluminum oxide, ferric oxide), growing macroalgae and other organisms (including corals), possibly the use of limewater/kalkwasser to precipitate calcium phosphate, and water changes. :)
 
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My tank on a red sea phosphate test kit in the begining when I needed help it was at a 3.06 po4 with a 50% water change and a week later a 65% its down to about a 1.08 po4. I'm letting the tank be for now so algea grows to eat some po4 out still testing water but I would like to see the po4 drop i m still getting a biopsy of the tank but very good stuff in this thread
 
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