High phosphates

[arakiwi]

Hello, im new here, and first of all thanks for all the info and help that you provide to each other, hope you can share some of your wisdom here, since i have a problem.

I have a 45gallon tank plus sump, stocked with a yellow tang(planning to upgrade tank in 2021) 3 clownfish, and last week i added a fire goby and another sandlifting goby which i do not recall the name but it is similar to the 4wheel.

the thing is no matter what my phosphates are always high (currently 0.33 according to hanna checker) and i have tried everything for over a year and a half now. It is really frustrating and im about to give uP. Since it affects to my corals specially zoas.

right now i have some floss, phosphaguard, gfo reactor and chaeto reactor. I do waterchanges weekly of 10 gallons and i have tried to increqse the intensity of my circulation pump, to a point That the sand is moving (i have heard that could be low water circulation) of course i have diatoms that fade away everynight. I bought the goby just to help with that.

any ideas that what can i do? When i added the gfo nothing happened, with phosphaguard nothing happened with chaeto reactor same thing...the only thing to help was nopox but at some point i overdosed and i had some of«white algae » which was excess of bacteria so i had to stopped it.

also i used to feed pellets. Litterally 2 pellets per fish per day and i even take one single pellet if it was not eaten(i got crazy) now i have change to frozen mysis due to the fire fish and o feed half cube in total in really small dosis so there is no waste.

Also i have checked with other tests to see if maybe hanna was misreading but nothing(besides i can see it on the sand and corals that something is wrong)

the rest is
Alk 8
Mg 1380
Cal 420
Nitrates 0
Ph 7.9(with nopox was even lower) i have tried to increased that also and it is being difficult as well)

Any help will be really appreciatte it, if im not correcting that soon i will ahve to give up.

thanks

 

[Duncan Tse]

Did you start with dry rocks? Most likely it is leaching out phosphates and you will need to give it time for all the build up phosphates to leach out.

Continue running gfo and monitor your phosphates weekly

 

[WIReefer]

First off welcome to R2R, do you run a skimmer or algae scrubber?

 

[magicwhistle]

How old is the tank? Were the rocks dry?

I think usually when you are dosing something like nopox algae turns white as it dies.

I wouldn’t continue using it though. If this is a young tank you’re likely gonna have to wait out as phosphates max out from the rocks and then come down. You can run GFO it’ll definitely help keep levels down.

Edit: nvm I see your tank is over a year old at least. Is your chaeto growing? Do you have a slimmer?

 

[sawdonkey]

As others have said, did you start with dry rock?

How are you running GFO? In a bag oin a reactor? Just in a bag probably ain’t gonna cut it.

Are you running a skimmer? NOPOX without a skimmer won’t do much of anything?

have you tried bigger water changes, like 20-30 gallons at a time? If so, does PO4 come down temporarily at least?

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

Okay so if your nitrates are truly zero you are nitrate locked. The gfo and other things not pulling po4, could be your rock just leaching it out like mentioned above. But your cheato reactor isn’t working to its full potential because you are nitrate locked. Start dosing nitrates and it will help pull down high phosphates. See I am the other way around. I actually use phosphorus dosing to manage my nitrate levels. If I don’t dose phosphorus for a few days nitrates creep up once I resume dosing nitrates will fall. I don’t run GFO or any other po4 remover. Just my skimmer and my fuge.

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

Also!!! Welcome to R2R!!!! If you have any questions feel free to ask! If I can’t answer I’m sure someone that can will chime in!!! That’s what we are all here for!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I would recommend a good water change and addition of chemiPure Elite which will break down PO4 and keep nitrate in check.
Are you using RO water or tap water ? From your water what is your TDS ( total dissolved solids is a measure of the dissolved combined content of all inorganic and organic substances present in a liquid in molecular, ionized or micro-granular suspended form. TDS concentrations are often measured in parts per million (ppm) Water TDS concentrations can be determined using a digital meter which are reasonably priced.

 

[arakiwi]

Thanks for all of your answers! Ill try to complete all my info, i have a e-shopps skimmer x-120 and yes it was dry rock but has been running for 18months now. HOWEVER due to the pandemic i « was forced » to leave the tank on basic maintenance for 2 months, ATO autodosing... without checking. So when i went back the posphates were really high(around 0.9) that is when i started to add nopox again and my nitrates went to 0(normally are around 5-10). So its funny that now i have to add nitrates.

also im using rodi water and Checking tds (0) .
So for the past year ive been around 0.16-0.20(it was extremelly rare going under 0.1 no matter what) and now im more to 0.3 due to this « breaking » of the pasta 2 months. But surprinsingly is that i do not have so much algae, just a little bit in a specific location. But i can tell my corals are not happy.

also i run gfo in a reactor. Ill try to post some pics tonight.

thanks so much i really apreciatte your time in reading and please forgive me if there is any mistake in my writting Since im not native English speaker