best way to lower and keep phosphate low?

[ScottR]

Yeah. Up until about month ago it was an annoying green dusting on the glass. I definitely kept my water too clean. I had a phos spike a few weeks ago that I thought was causing the small hammer to have polyp bailout. I used GFO to lower the phos which helped the coral recover. Unfortunately, I think I zeroed out the phosphate since the app test I was using (now using red Sea) is not very accurate.

So far I removed carbon, gfo, and sticking to a normal feeding schedule for the fish. Manually removing what I can.

I run a smaller tank (40g). I refuse to do chaeto, gfo and carbon. I try to keep my husbandry locked in so I can weave my way out of these problems. With that said, I run into problems too. It’s the nature of the game.

 

[SynGraves]

I run a smaller tank (40g). I refuse to do chaeto, gfo and carbon. I try to keep my husbandry locked in so I can weave my way out of these problems. With that said, I run into problems too. It’s the nature of the game.

I hear ya. My last tank was a 20g long and was my first reef tank so, naturally, I tried to shortcut a lot of stuff.... I always had GHA issues or got lazy with water changes and something would spike. This tank I tried doing everything by the book and was diligent with weekly WC and testing. Still trying to find that happy balance...

 

[ScottR]

I hear ya. My last tank was a 20g long and was my first reef tank so, naturally, I tried to shortcut a lot of stuff.... I always had GHA issues or got lazy with water changes and something would spike. This tank I tried doing everything by the book and was diligent with weekly WC and testing. Still trying to find that happy balance...

You just need to find that happy spot. Right amount of water changes, right timing, feeding, etc. I prefer to focus more on corals than fish and I find it easier. Before I wanted to stock my tank full of fish. Now I prefer to keep just a few. Saltwater fish are not easy to care for. ;Punch

 

[Idoc]

You'll want to confirm the type of dinos you have. If only staying on the sand bed, more than likely amphidinium dinos...royal pain in the rear to remove. I've been battling them for many months.

When i was hit hard with these, my corals also started to hide and die off. There's an entire thread on amphidinium dinos that you'll want to read up on if you make a definite type diagnosis. But, you may want to hold off on reducing that phosphate until you read more. I purposely dosed up my phosphates and nitrates to help fight the dinos.

 

[SeaDweller]

First make sure it’s dinos. I had that “stuff” grow in my 60 cube with 100 Acro frags when I set it up: new water, a bunch of old live rock from my existing tank. It grew mainly on the new eggcrate and on the glass. It was there for about 2-3 weeks tops then slowly went away. Mine looked exactly like yours too, I did nothing and no problems. So, just make sure it’s dinos before you do anything to battle them.

 

[SynGraves]

You'll want to confirm the type of dinos you have. If only staying on the sand bed, more than likely amphidinium dinos...royal pain in the rear to remove. I've been battling them for many months.

When i was hit hard with these, my corals also started to hide and die off. There's an entire thread on amphidinium dinos that you'll want to read up on if you make a definite type diagnosis. But, you may want to hold off on reducing that phosphate until you read more. I purposely dosed up my phosphates and nitrates to help fight the dinos.

Yeah, I'm bringing a sample to my LFS this week to see if they can get it under a microscope and ID it. Since I started this post they have begun taking over the rocks and corals. Atleast twice per day I am blowing gunk off of my hammer corals. The only coral that seems unaffected is my acan frag which is front and center on the sand.

As of now, as I mentioned, I pulled all carbon and GFO out. Going to use a filter sock to try and filter as much of the dinos out and put the filtered tank water back in which was a suggestion I read on one of the many dino related threads here.

Worst case, I'll move my fish and coral to my QT and reboot the 10g if I cant get this under control.

 

[Idoc]

Yeah, I'm bringing a sample to my LFS this week to see if they can get it under a microscope and ID it. Since I started this post they have begun taking over the rocks and corals. Atleast twice per day I am blowing gunk off of my hammer corals. The only coral that seems unaffected is my acan frag which is front and center on the sand.

As of now, as I mentioned, I pulled all carbon and GFO out. Going to use a filter sock to try and filter as much of the dinos out and put the filtered tank water back in which was a suggestion I read on one of the many dino related threads here.

Worst case, I'll move my fish and coral to my QT and reboot the 10g if I cant get this under control.

Dinos go right through a filter sock! You need around a 10 micron sock to filter out dinos.

Also, if you pull your corals out and place in another tank, dinos will also spread to that other tank and then ultimately back into your main tank again after you return the corals. Best bet is to eradicate the dinos and know its going to be a long battle. Some dinos are easily killed with UV Sterilizers, so important to get an ID for sure. Amphidinium dinos are minimally effected by UV sterilizers, though.

Keep the phosphates elevated and dose nitrates to get those levels up some. Corals may or may not like it.

But most importantly, ID the type of dinos and then adjust your attack.

 

[SynGraves]

I have a few 5 micron filter bags I was planning on using.

 

[Jmass015]

Check your water ! If it’s RODI test it could be depleted filters.

 

[vetteguy53081]

My best success has been small doses using Red Sea NO3PO4-X. Works great and very reliable

 

[MRB]

Started my tank (75gal) in December and just now getting over the dinos. With a small tank like yours manual removal and complete water changes may do the trick. I took the high nutrients approach with blowing off rocks daily. Took a couple months but it's slowly getting better without chemicals. My Algae eaters are very happy with my plan of attack ;D

 

[Chriskkusa]

Check your water ! If it’s RODI test it could be depleted filters.

+1

When I have dino outbreaks I know that my RODI isn't removing silicates as efficiently. (I lack a TDS meter) I also use Boyd Chemi pure blue and although it says up to 3 months use, it's more like 1 1/2 month for my 28 cube. It also became better when I ditched the sponge and went with plain filter floss changed regularly. Interestingly, I have never had a dino (knock on wood) outbreak in my 80 gal with 26 gal sump.

The worst dino outbreaks had that snotty stuff breaking free and floating which makes it easier to remove by dipping a cup to skim the surface, and scooping the water out. So you could baste the stuff loose with that method to free it. It took numerous water changes to clear those cases.

 

[Spanks2]

I swear by Algaebarn phyto, that will cure your Dino problem. Try making your tank dirty and seed some GHA to outcompete dinos. GHA is easier to get rid than dinos. Your tank is young and will mature in time. The good bacteria is losing its fight against bad bacteria

 

[chaoticreefer]

I personally would slowly remove the marinepure balls little bit at a time until nitrates are somewhere 5-10 ppm. Your phoshates should drop with higher nitrates. I experience this in my tank. Every time my nitrates bottom out, my phosphate sky rockets. So I begun to dose nitrates, I had to dose 3-4 times per week to keep it up. Than it hit me, "why am I dosing nitrates when I have siporax in my system that is designed to remove ammonia all of the way down to nitrates, making nitrogen gas". It was a no brainer, it just took awhile to seek in on what's going on.

But...every system is different, it just one area to consider. It relies on the Redfield ratio.

 

[MRB]

+1

When I have dino outbreaks I know that my RODI isn't removing silicates as efficiently. (I lack a TDS meter) I also use Boyd Chemi pure blue and although it says up to 3 months use, it's more like 1 1/2 month for my 28 cube. It also became better when I ditched the sponge and went with plain filter floss changed regularly. Interestingly, I have never had a dino (knock on wood) outbreak in my 80 gal with 26 gal sump.

The worst dino outbreaks had that snotty stuff breaking free and floating which makes it easier to remove by dipping a cup to skim the surface, and scooping the water out. So you could baste the stuff loose with that method to free it. It took numerous water changes to clear those cases.

My understand was that silicates cause diatom outbreaks, and that imbalances in nutrients cause dinoflagellates to flourish? Not completely sure on the correlation between silicates and dinoflagellates.

I think dosing silica and having a diatom bloom would counter a dino bloom, and would be easier to remove once dinos were gone.

Probably not practical for a 10 gallon tank though

 

[SMB]

Removing rock may decrease your surface area for biological filtration. Maybe place on top of one of the two other rocks?

 

[Paul J]

I have been using Phosphate RX. If you do be very careful and half the recommended dose and then half that again and test often for results. I don't know what a aqua-clear 50 HOB is. But you need a protein skimmer so the Phosphate RX waste is removed. However as it has been said your tank is still in the early stages. Just keep cleaning up what you can and your tank will improve.
Phosphate tests? I used Salifert and a Milwaukee tester and when I dose Phosphate RX I get varying results each week from a Milwaukee tester (the test from the Salifert confirms that the reads vary). My goal is 0.00ppm by the end of each week. Now by the time the next week comes around the tests can read up to 0.27ppm and over, which was the last result I got. I dose Phosphate RX for this reading with 3 drops into my 88 litre system and the drops go into the top of the skimmer. I then test the next day and get low results (in this case back to 0.00ppm) I have still yet to find the sweet spot for dosing Phosphate RX for general maintenance. But there again this may never happen as it depends on how much food I feed the tank. The results are in ppm and when you read up on phosphates your can get readings in ppb for phosphate. So when I see 0.00ppm from the Milwaukee I know I still have some phosphate in my system. Its proven with the microalgae and Cheto that still grows.
I'm not a weekly water change guy. Canister filter (yeah I know) is cleaned once every two weeks and 10% water change once a month. I do dose Alk and Cal with Mag and also trace elements etc, etc.

 

[Paul J]

I have been using Phosphate RX.
If you do be very careful and half the recommended dose and then half that again and test often for results.
I don't know what an aqua clear 50 HOB is. But you need a protein skimmer so the Phosphate RX waste is removed. However as it has been said your tank is still in the early stages. Just keep cleaning up what you can and your tank will improve.

Phosphate tests? I use Salifert and a Milwaukee tester and when I dose Phosphate RX I get varying results each week from the Milwaukee tester (the test from the Salifert confirms that the reads vary). My goal is 0.00ppm by the end of each week. Now by the time the next week comes around the tests can read up to 0.27ppm which was the last result I got. I dose Phosphate RX for this reading with 3 drops into my 88 litre system and the drops go into the top of the skimmer. I have still yet to find the sweet spot for dosing Phosphate RX for general maintenance. But there again this may never happen as it depends on how much food I feed the tank each week. The results are in ppm and when you read up on phosphate you can get readings in ppb for phosphate. So when I see 0.00ppm from the Milwaukee I know I still have some phosphate in my system. It’s proven with the microalgae and Cheto that still grows.

I'm not a weekly water change guy. Canister filter (yeah I know) is cleaned once every two weeks and 10% water change once a month. I do dose Alk and Cal with Mag and also trace elements etc., etc.

 

[SynGraves]

Last night my LFS was able to get a sample of my tank gunk under a scope. Confirmed Ostreopsis dinos.

Current course of action was to manually remove as much as possible and filter tank water through a 5 micron filter bag, put filtered tank water back and dosed Dr. Tims bacteria to make sure the bacteria population was up to par. As of this morning the bloom came back but not as thick probably due to the lights only being on acouple hours. I have copepods and phyto on order to help seed the tank since I know this tank had none.

Let the battle begin...

 

[MRB]

Last night my LFS was able to get a sample of my tank gunk under a scope. Confirmed Ostreopsis dinos.

Current course of action was to manually remove as much as possible and filter tank water through a 5 micron filter bag, put filtered tank water back and dosed Dr. Tims bacteria to make sure the bacteria population was up to par. As of this morning the bloom came back but not as thick probably due to the lights only being on acouple hours. I have copepods and phyto on order to help seed the tank since I know this tank had none.

Let the battle begin...[/QU

Last night my LFS was able to get a sample of my tank gunk under a scope. Confirmed Ostreopsis dinos.

Current course of action was to manually remove as much as possible and filter tank water through a 5 micron filter bag, put filtered tank water back and dosed Dr. Tims bacteria to make sure the bacteria population was up to par. As of this morning the bloom came back but not as thick probably due to the lights only being on acouple hours. I have copepods and phyto on order to help seed the tank since I know this tank had none.

Let the battle begin...

Good luck! Shouldnt be too bad with that size tank. Quick and speedy recovery!