High Phosphate I have looked at everything please help

[Joe parrish]

So my phosphates are high between .08 and .12 and I have been fighting hair algae

I am running gfo in a reactor as well as running phosguard in the filter area I am also dosing phosphate r/x

I checked my ro water as well as my fresh mix salt water both of those have 0

I tried changing foods limiting the amount of food

I am at a loss if my rocks are leaching it how long until it will stop

any recommendations would be great

 

[FLAdaboy]

What test kit are you using? Do you have a TDS meter for your RODI as well? How new is your tank?

 

[luke33]

What kind of rock did you use to start your tank?

 

[Joe parrish]

What test kit are you using? Do you have a TDS meter for your RODI as well? How new is your tank?

Hanna phosphorus ultra low range lowest number I got was 26 which is .07976 also have a red sea kit, I have a tds meter in line on the rodi as well as a handheld tds meter both read 0 I checked the phosphates in the rodi water as well as fresh mixed salt to show it was not the salt both had 0
and the tank is about 9 moths old

 

[Joe parrish]

What kind of rock did you use to start your tank?

live rock from the lfs and also some base rock from Marco rocks

 

[twilliard]

Do you have a refugium?
If so stock it up with several species of macro algae

 

[Joe parrish]

Do you have a refugium?
If so stock it up with several species of macro algae

I was growing chetto but i had a outbreak of redslime I lost everything in there

 

[Catchemall]

Build an algae scrubber

 

[twilliard]

I was growing chetto but i had a outbreak of redslime I lost everything in there

It takes a lot more than just one species of algae as each species will uptake different elements.
Your red slime (cyanobacteria ) is easily handled with h2o2 if it ever invades again.
Po4 IMO is the easiest compound to remove

 

[Joe parrish]

It takes a lot more than just one species of algae as each species will uptake different elements.
Your red slime (cyanobacteria ) is easily handled with h2o2 if it ever invades again.
Po4 IMO is the easiest compound to remove

I had just started it about 2 weeks prior to the red slime outbreak and I used chemi-clean red slim remover and it worked well and fast

 

[d2mini]

live rock from the lfs and also some base rock from Marco rocks

Do a google search. There has been many accounts of Marco rocks leaching crazy phosphates.

 

[Elegance Coral]

Can you post a FTS and a pic of the sump?

 

[Joe parrish]

Do a google search. There has been many accounts of Marco rocks leaching crazy phosphates.

wouldn't that have showed up in the first few months?
If it is the rock leaching will it eventually stop or would I need to dip it in peroxide, I would be a little worried to do this and start a cycle again

 

[Joe parrish]

Can you post a FTS and a pic of the sump?

Not sure what a fts is and I am not home to take a picture but it is a 45 gal jbj I cut the black cover off the rear chamber and put a led behind it I put the chetto in the media basket

 

[d2mini]

wouldn't that have showed up in the first few months?
If it is the rock leaching will it eventually stop or would I need to dip it in peroxide, I would be a little worried to do this and start a cycle again

No it usually takes a little time for it to start leaching.
It may eventually stop, but I've seen people struggle with it for months on end and finally resort to replacing it all with a different rock. Peroxide won't do anything.
I'm not saying this is what it is because there seems to be people that have no issues with marco rock. But it may be worth looking into.

And FTS is an acronym for Full Tank Shot.

 

[Elegance Coral]

Full Tank Shot

Do a couple of LARGE water changes. Get as much organic matter out as you can. Hair algae, detritus, anything that can rot. Try to limit areas in the tank where detritus can accumulate. Replace the GFO, and your PO4 should come down.

 

[Fenzinna]

Why are you concerned with the po4? In my tank, which is all sps, I find best color and growth between .04-.08ppm. I continue to feed my fish and ramp up when I see that my tank's bioload is handling the additional feedings.

As per the hair algae, I would just get a fish that grazes and it'll slowly handle itself or you'll just have free fish food. The refugium could also be a good answer for it.

If your corals look healthy, just leave it alone and don't do anything drastic. You're not going to overcome the hair algae over night.

 

[FLAdaboy]

Depending on food too. But, what I have done in the past is no feed and no lights for 3 days then a water change. After that, I did regular water changes and the algae never came back. I also started vacuuming my substrate which is reef flakes.

 

[luke33]

live rock from the lfs and also some base rock from Marco rocks

In my experience dry rock can be a major pain and like others have mentioned can leach phos for months. What are your nitrates at? Your throwing alot of phosphate removing at your tank so i'm really surprised you can't get below .08 not that that is a terrible number to be at, but if your using all those methods and still struggle something is off. Do you have much sand in your tank? Are you running a skimmer? If i am using Lanthanum Chloride its generally a last resort option, but always make sure i'm skimming heavy and running filter socks to remove it.

 

[d2mini]

If it makes you feel any better, my p04 is currently .29