Dealing with my phos

Fishko · Mar 29, 2020

Current param
1.026 salinity
440 calc
1320 mag
8.7 dkh alk
Nitrate 3 ppm up from 1ppm
Phos!!! .02-.2ppm
My nutrients have been almost undetectable for a couple months using hanna ulr for phos and nyos for nitrate. To raise them ive been feeding reef roids and mysis. Going to stop the reef roids. But should i just do a couple of water changes to bring down my phos or a couple of drops of lanthanum chloride at night. My corals are actually doing better frogspawn is opening big again, but candy coral seems to be shruken up a little. Torch is opening really big now. My tank is mainly lps. Water volume is roughly 30 g

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 29, 2020

Water changes don't help phosphate as much as you'd expect due to the amount bound to rock and sand.

i wouldn't do anything drastic. Too low is much worse than too high.

Fishko · Mar 29, 2020

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Water changes don't help phosphate as much as you'd expect due to the amount bound to rock and sand.

i wouldn't do anything drastic. Too low is much worse than too high.

i did stir up my sandbed a little cause there was a little cyano lingering. Should i add maybe a few drops of lanthanum chloride to lower it maybe to .15?

ScottB · Mar 29, 2020

Fishko said:
i did stir up my sandbed a little cause there was a little cyano lingering. Should i add maybe a few drops of lanthanum chloride to lower it maybe to .15?

Double check (if you have not already) your Hanna test first. One tiny finger smudge on the cuvette can through you way off.

Actually, tell me this: When you put the reagent into cuvette #2, did it turn a shade of blue? If not relax. Let the corals eat it. If it did turn blue, be SUPER careful with LC, It works too well for most people's good.

Personally, I freak out when PO4 hits .02. At .2 I roll over and go back to sleep. Here is a pic at .17 of PO4 for you:

W1ngz · Mar 29, 2020

You say it's 0.02-0.2, that's a wide range. Is it stable? Increasing? Decreasing? Why such a large range?

IME running small amounts of GFO short term and testing daily is a quick and easy way to bring phosphates down to a target level, if your levels are stable.

Fishko · Mar 29, 2020

W1ngz said:
You say it's 0.02-0.2, that's a wide range. Is it stable? Increasing? Decreasing? Why such a large range?

IME running small amounts of GFO short term and testing daily is a quick and easy way to bring phosphates down to a target level, if your levels are stable.

Im going to retest, i started to feed more, but it seems a little fishy no pun intended.

Fishko · Mar 29, 2020

ScottB said:
Double check (if you have not already) your Hanna test first. One tiny finger smudge on the cuvette can through you way off.

Actually, tell me this: When you put the reagent into cuvette #2, did it turn a shade of blue? If not relax. Let the corals eat it. If it did turn blue, be SUPER careful with LC, It works too well for most people's good.

Personally, I freak out when PO4 hits .02. At .2 I roll over and go back to sleep. Here is a pic at .17 of PO4 for you:

Ya my corals seem to like it more than .02 or .03 i think melevs reef on yt runs his even higher. Thanks!