Chronic Phosphate problems

[Engloid]

I have:
220g display, about full of live rock, 3-4inches of coarse sand
55g tank below it in stand, setup with deep sand bed
Both drain down into the basement where I have:
two 55g drums for sumps
big skimmer
phosphate reactor
two 20g frag tanks

I've had problems with phosphate forever. Nothing seems to help. The phosphate reactor seems to do nothing with gfo. Carbon does nothing. Waterchanges of 100-150g each does nothing. I tried biopellets for a while...nothing.

This is what's leading me to think maybe it's something with the sandbed, and considering getting one of the gravel siphons for freshwater, and cleaning my sand out. It's not been cleaned..ever that I know of. This tank has been set up for about 2 years. Looking through the glass at the sand, there are some dark spots in it. Im not sure if that's an indicator of anything specific. These spots are mostly about an inch deep.

Any advice or thoughts?

 

[gtbarsi]

Lets start at the beginning.

What are your water parameters? Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate?
How much GFO, and of what type are you using? How often are you changing it?
Do you have a Fuge? If so how big, and how often are you removing excess algae growth?
Do you have ANY mechanical filtration setup in your system? If so what and how often do you replace it?

When you can please provide some picks, and also please test some new water that has been mixed as you normally would (make sure you age it as you normally would) for phosphates, ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite.


As to disturbing a 2 year old sand bed, I would recommend you hold off on that until we look at everything else. If you do disturb it, do 1 small section at a time, and you should to have a fresh clean mechanical filter in place to capture and remove anything that gets kicked up into the water column, or it is just going to end up somewhere else. I would recommend a large 100 or 200 micron filter sock.

 

[Engloid]

What are your water parameters? Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate?
Ammonia stays 0
Nitrite 0 or very near
Nitrate 25
Phosphate 25-50ppm

I use the fine brown GFO from BRS. I put in probably a quart or so at a time...about all I can fit in my reactor. I change about once every month or two. I would change more, but since it seems to have no effect, it is like just throwing away money.

The 55g in the stand is set up like a fuge...but I get no algae growth other than coralline. I can put caulerpa or chaeto in there, and it slowly dies off. I have an old compact flourescent light on it. I have zero green hair algae in the tank or elsewhere. I do get a couple small clumps occasionally in my frag tanks, but not so much that the emeralds or goby doesn't take care of.

I have one sock filter. It's 3ft long. I change it out as it clogs up and overflows, which takes about a week.

I tested RO water a while back and got 0 TDS. Would I still need to do other testing on it?

What would you want to see pictures of?

As to disturbing a 2 year old sand bed, I would recommend you hold off on that until we look at everything else. If you do disturb it, do 1 small section at a time, and you should to have a fresh clean mechanical filter in place to capture and remove anything that gets kicked up into the water column, or it is just going to end up somewhere else. I would recommend a large 100 or 200 micron filter sock.

Yeah, I figured IF I messed with the sand, I would do a little at a time. I found out that you can buy big sock filters from mcmaster carr...for a fraction of what fish places sell them for. I need to get more. Wife washed mine with dog's blanket and now some of them are covered in little boxer hairs. I just don't feel safe using those anymore. I have two that didn't get "contaminated."

 

[MrDJeep123]

What do you feed and how much?

 

[Engloid]

I feed Ocean nutrition pellets and flakes, primarily. I also supplement with home made food (shrimp and squid, blended and frozen). I feed once a day, most days, sometimes once every other day. The amount of food I put in is gone in about 3-5 minutes.

 

[ReddyW]

I had rocks that were leaching phosphate for a little over a year. I went through HC GFO and Phosguard like crazy. Finally it all got sucked out and now I only run the GFO reactor about once a week with heavy feeding.

There's a lot of info on using lanthanum chloride (SeaKlear from the pool store) for dropping phosphate if you look on Reef Central.

 

[MrDJeep123]

Minimize the use of the flake food. Where do you get the shrimp and squid? Grocery store? Do you buy it raw or prepackaged? The thing is, it's impossible to get zero phosphorous foods because all foods contain it. It's just there.
How much are feeding when you feed?

Edit: and the rock may leach as one comment stated.

 

[Engloid]

Minimize the use of the flake food. Where do you get the shrimp and squid? Grocery store? Do you buy it raw or prepackaged? The thing is, it's impossible to get zero phosphorous foods because all foods contain it. It's just there.
How much are feeding when you feed?

Edit: and the rock may leach as one comment stated.

I don't use a lot of flake food. I don't like the waste and mess it makes. It winds up in the sock filter. I don't know how I can answer how much I feed. I don't weigh or measure it, but I can tell you that I'm not overfeeding. I've been doing aquariums for many years, and have been able to overstock them based on what most recommend, because I don't overfeed.

This tank ha been up for about 2 years, so I dont know if the rocks could leech out that much. Also, if that was it, I think I would see drastic drops in phosphate for the few days after a waterchange. I once went through 400gallons of waterchanges, within about 2 weeks...and after spending that much on salt, saw very little change in phosphate level. It dropped after the first couple big changes, but then stabilized at abut 25. I was changing water once a week...about 100g each. It got to the point that I wasn't seeing any drop at all. This tells me that if something is leeching out phosphate, it's able to do it very quickly.

 

[evan.lundberg4]

I have:
220g display, about full of live rock, 3-4inches of coarse sand

55g tank below it in stand, setup with deep sand bed

It's not been cleaned..ever that I know of. This tank has been set up for about 2 years.

IMO from everything I've read about sandbeds and deep sandbeds this is where your problem lies. There is two years worth of detritus in there that is now leeching our in the form of phosphates.

 

[Reefing Madness]

You have way to much phosphate in the tank for your GFO to remove, the way your changing it. Heres what you do. Intsall a new batch of GFO, test the phosphate number, yoiu will see initially that it comes donw rather quickly, test each day, you will see it slow down, then stop completely. What your is doing is removing a ton in the first few days, then its exhausted that quick. You need to change it more often to get on top of the problem and get it down, then you'll be able to change it less.
Or you can try Brightwell or SeaKlear Phosphate removers to get it down right now, then use the GFO after its knocked out of the system.

 

[Engloid]

You have way to much phosphate in the tank for your GFO to remove, the way your changing it. Heres what you do. Intsall a new batch of GFO, test the phosphate number, yoiu will see initially that it comes donw rather quickly, test each day, you will see it slow down, then stop completely.

That's the problem...it DOESN'T drop at all by replacing GFO. GFO seems to do nothing.

Or you can try Brightwell or SeaKlear Phosphate removers to get it down right now, then use the GFO after its knocked out of the system.

Any drawbacks to using them?

 

[Reefing Madness]

On the onset of using them it binds quite a bit of phosphate together quickly, and unless you have a huge skimmer and possibly a mechanical filter also, it can leave behind some stringy stuff. You can just blow it off the rocks or vacuum it up. Its bound phosphate and can't be released, so your testing should read true.
You can knock the phosphates down rather quickly with this stuff. I use the SeaKlear myself, on a weekly basis, you don't need alot for it to do its job.

 

[ReddyW]

Red the thread I posted about lanthanum chloride on Reef Central before starting. I didn't read the whole thing, but it seems the consensus was to drip it before a filter sock to catch the precipitate unless you had a great skimmer.

Could be the sandbed too. Replacing it in a running tank is tricky business. Search for advice before you start.

 

[ReddyW]

Red the thread

Should say 'read'.

You can regenerate used GFO.

 

[gtbarsi]

What are your water parameters? Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate?
Ammonia stays 0
Nitrite 0 or very near
Nitrate 25
Phosphate 25-50ppm

I use the fine brown GFO from BRS. I put in probably a quart or so at a time...about all I can fit in my reactor. I change about once every month or two. I would change more, but since it seems to have no effect, it is like just throwing away money.

The 55g in the stand is set up like a fuge...but I get no algae growth other than coralline. I can put caulerpa or chaeto in there, and it slowly dies off. I have an old compact flourescent light on it. I have zero green hair algae in the tank or elsewhere. I do get a couple small clumps occasionally in my frag tanks, but not so much that the emeralds or goby doesn't take care of.

I have one sock filter. It's 3ft long. I change it out as it clogs up and overflows, which takes about a week.

I tested RO water a while back and got 0 TDS. Would I still need to do other testing on it?

What would you want to see pictures of?


Yeah, I figured IF I messed with the sand, I would do a little at a time. I found out that you can buy big sock filters from mcmaster carr...for a fraction of what fish places sell them for. I need to get more. Wife washed mine with dog's blanket and now some of them are covered in little boxer hairs. I just don't feel safe using those anymore. I have two that didn't get "contaminated."

Here is what I would do...

Start changing your filter socks every 2-3 days, if you need to get more in order to do this or if the socks are the least bit suspect get 100-200 micron socks. I clean mine in the washer, no soap, HOT WATER and Hydrogen Peroxide. Let air dry and you can be sure they are clean and not contaminated...

Swap out your GFO for Phosguard (get a large jar of it), it will strip much more phosphate much faster. Start testing phosphates daily and if it stops dropping and stays that way for 3 days, swap it out for fresh. Some people say you can re-generate it but I would not.

Test your fully mixed (and aged) new salt water for Phosphates, there are several potential sources in making up new water. RO filter issues, salt mix issues, mixing/storage container issues. Lets be sure we know you are actually diluting the phosphates in the water when you do a water change.

Once all of that is done and we are seeing some drop in phosphates, that is when I would start cleaning a 10"x10" square of sand. I would use a siphon style gravel vacuum, as you want to be sure to remove all detritus from the system, not spread it around. As it is you will still have some stuff end up in the water column, and your filter sock and skimmer, and Phosguard should be able to mange it. Provided you do not see any issues, I would say you could clean up to 2 of these 10x10 sections / week. But start slow only doing 1 / week for the first several weeks.

Once you see your phosphates <= 5ppm, switch back to GFO, I would recommend the HC stuff in the beginning until we are sure you really have it under control.

Let us know what changes you decide on and how your testing goes...

 

[tyler1503]

Hmmm. Considering to have no algae, you have a reef and frag tanks and seem to have no ill affected corals, no chemical filtration will affect your numbers and neither do water changes, maybe you just have a bad test kit? To me it sounds like there's no phosphate in the water to begin with.
How many other test kits have you verified it with?

 

[mike007]

Have you considered carbon dosing? Check out the Redsea videos on using nopox. http://www.redseafish.com/

 

[gtbarsi]

Have you considered carbon dosing? Check out the Redsea videos on using nopox. Red Sea providing complete solutions for coral reef & marine hobbyists by developing complite Aquarium systems & chemistry solutions.

I would think that first addressing the source would be a smart thing before starting nopox, or carbon dosing. I have always thought those methods best used in systems that were stocked in excess of what the water volume, filtration, and nutrient export solutions were capable of managing. The OP did not suggest his system was overstocked. The fact that the OP's nitrate and phosphate are as high as they are despite large volumes of water changes suggests that there is an underlying issue that needs to be addressed.

 

[Dowtish]

When you say that the tank is FULL of live rock, does that mean it is just a huge pile of rocks all the way across the tank and stacked to the top? How much flow can get in between your rocks on the bottom? And can you siphon the sand at all? You might be surprised how much detritus can build up under and around the LR. I understand the thought process of having lots of surface area for bacteria, but when it is simply too much rock for there to be any flow in and around them, you can start to have issues.