High Phosphates

Xclusive Reef · Dec 18, 2018

Hi I have a newish JBJ 45 gallon tank and I just started getting diatoms 2 days ago. Tank is now 7 weeks old and I started with raw shrimp for 6 weeks. I am using red sea test kits.

I tested and here are the results.

Nitrate: 40 ish did 2 (30%) water changes and still same on nitrates.
Phosphates: 0.61
Alkalinity 6.6

I want to use phosphate in a reactor but not sure how much to use? any recommendations? I understand GFO strips the water real fast, I was thinking running GFO and Carbon in the reactor for 3-4 hours a day until it lowers? or should I run it non stop and test each morning?

acabgd · Dec 18, 2018

Considering this is a brand new tank it's normal not to have all the levels in check. I would not add anything more to the tank and certainly not GFO at this point. Make another water change next weekend and another one after that and the levels should continue to fall. No need to test every single day, what is needed is patience. Diatoms are a normal part of the cycling process, but it also means that you are progressing

Xclusive Reef · Dec 18, 2018

acabgd said:
Considering this is a brand new tank it's normal not to have all the levels in check. I would not add anything more to the tank and certainly not GFO at this point. Make another water change next weekend and another one after that and the levels should continue to fall. No need to test every single day, what is needed is patience. Diatoms are a normal part of the cycling process, but it also means that you are progressing

I agree with you.. I put in a frogspawn last week and it was doing ok, still is but not as good as when I first added it. I figured let me run gfo for few days and see if i can get it lower then turn it off

O'l Salty · Dec 24, 2018

Chasing numbers will get you nowhere fast.

Xclusive Reef · Dec 24, 2018

O'l Salty said:
Chasing numbers will get you nowhere fast.

what number all in general or phosphates? if certain parameters are not within a range so your suggestion is to leave it?

PatW · Dec 24, 2018

For phosphates, Randy Holmes-Farley recommends .03 ppm or less. You want more than 0 ppm. Only the Hanna ULR checker measures phosphate levels that low. You can use GFO, just run a relatively small amount at a time.

For phosphates, the levels you can run ..... depends. If you have a robust grazer crew and you don’t have corals that won’t tolerate high nutrients, you can run higher levels.