Insane Phosphate Swings - Need Help!

[EricTheRed]

So here's the deal...my po4 levels raise insanely fast and I'm trying to figure out why. I have a 90G with 100g of water volume. I've been going through so much gfo that I need to replace it every 4 days. (using brs high-capacity). I don't have any macro and I was dosing nopox but stopped because it was causing cyano. I do not feed much, a few small pinches of NLS pellets in the afternoon and a small amount of mysis in the eve...some days I skip the mysis. I'm testing with a Hanna and even used my neighbor's Hanna to confirm mine was testing accurate, it was. So basically, GFO was all I was doing. It works for a few days then it needs to be replaced!

Here is what happened when I took the gfo offline..

May 31st - 0.02ppm
June 1st - 0.16ppm ...

• I dosed lanthum and dropped it down to 0.0 then took the GFO offline

June 3rd - 0.0ppm
June 4th - 0.10ppm
June 5th - 1.33ppm

I know it is not from overfeeding so I'm assuming that something is leaching po4's. I have some marco and tonga branch in the DT and a Marine Pure block in the sump with some rubble.

I'm going to remove the MP block and put it in a 5g bucket with some tank water for a day and see what the test comes back at. If it isn't the block then I'm going to remove the rock...piece by piece and do the same thing to try and isolate what could be leaching.

Has anyone else ever experienced this or have any suggestions on something else I can do to try and figure out the source?

Here's an old tank shot to show the rock. I went with a minimal scape...hence the reason why I put the Marine Pure block in the sump. Could it be a situation of not having enough rock?

 

[Myka]

How old is your tank?

 

[EricTheRed]

In it's current "reef" state....1 year. Prior to that it was FO for about 1.5 years...and prior to that it was a reef tank for about 2 years. The po4's were about 3ppm when it was FO, but it's been a year of running gfo since then.

 

[jason2459]

I doubt the Marine pure is the source. However, they do hold a ton of water so if you take it out and put it in a bucket the water in the Marine pure will "leach out" which could show up on your test. My guess is the surfaces of the rocks and sand. And as you can see GFO will exhaust itself quickly in high levels of PO4. It's good at helping to maintain lowered PO4 or help lower moderate PO4. I like LaCL3 to help bring down very high PO4. You may need to do several doses. I personally would not dose Lanthanum chloride with out some type of very fine (10 micron or smaller) filter. Could be a filter sock, diatom filter, marineland has an in tank filter now you can add DE powder to, etc.

But, do you actually see any issues in your tank? It looks nice to me in that picture but you said it's an older picture. You could use just Vinegar as a carbon source as many have seen an increase in Cyano when a Vodka/Ethanol source is used like what's in NoPox. But carbon dosing alone will only do so much and is better at helping to keep PO4 steady at what ever state it's in. Not so much at lowering it drastically.

If I'm reading the first post right you only have a 10 gallon sump right? You are pretty much space limited. Adding more surface area could help if carbon dosing or just bacteria growth in generally but usually towards the nitrification process. Which de-nitrifying bacteria consume very little PO4. Algae is a good option but with limited space Macro algae harvesting would be difficult in the sump. There are some making or selling Chaeto reactors. Another option is an Algae Turf Scrubber you can sit on top of your sump. I run a Turbo's Aquatics ATS and does very well. Or you could build your own.

 

[Myka]

In it's current "reef" state....1 year. Prior to that it was FO for about 1.5 years...and prior to that it was a reef tank for about 2 years. The po4's were about 3ppm when it was FO, but it's been a year of running gfo since then.

It's still leaching from the high PO4 from the FO time. Ime, 18 months is about the time it will take. If I were you I'd switch to Lanthanum chloride dosing to save some money on GFO. I use the Brightwell Phosphat-E. Don't dose a lot at a time, best used on a doser. I dose it into the overflow so it has lots of time in the sump to be filtered out by media or skimmer.

It the 10-gallon sump a typo? I imagine the way is speeding through that thing like nobody's business. You may have better results (better filtering) from the LC if you had a bigger sump with less velocity.

 

[EricTheRed]

I doubt the Marine pure is the source. However, they do hold a ton of water so if you take it out and put it in a bucket the water in the Marine pure will "leach out" which could show up on your test. My guess is the surfaces of the rocks and sand. And as you can see GFO will exhaust itself quickly in high levels of PO4. It's good at helping to maintain lowered PO4 or help lower moderate PO4. I like LaCL3 to help bring down very high PO4. You may need to do several doses. I personally would not dose Lanthanum chloride with out some type of very fine (10 micron or smaller) filter. Could be a filter sock, diatom filter, marineland has an in tank filter now you can add DE powder to, etc.

But, do you actually see any issues in your tank? It looks nice to me in that picture but you said it's an older picture. You could use just Vinegar as a carbon source as many have seen an increase in Cyano when a Vodka/Ethanol source is used like what's in NoPox. But carbon dosing alone will only do so much and is better at helping to keep PO4 steady at what ever state it's in. Not so much at lowering it drastically.

If I'm reading the first post right you only have a 10 gallon sump right? You are pretty much space limited. Adding more surface area could help if carbon dosing or just bacteria growth in generally but usually towards the nitrification process. Which de-nitrifying bacteria consume very little PO4. Algae is a good option but with limited space Macro algae harvesting would be difficult in the sump. There are some making or selling Chaeto reactors. Another option is an Algae Turf Scrubber you can sit on top of your sump. I run a Turbo's Aquatics ATS and does very well. Or you could build your own.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I believe the sump probably has about 15g of water in it. It is 3 ft long and 16" wide. I happen to know there is 100g of water in the system because I paid close attention to how much water I put in the tank when I first started it. I have a 12"x 16" center section in the sump which will be a good enough sized area for some chaeto to grow. I've never needed to have a fuge...I'm on the hunt for some now.

As far as the Marine Pure block, I don't specifically suspect it is the culprit but it will be the easiest to remove and test, so I will test it. I haven't found any info about it related to phosphate issues but it is the only real difference between this setup and how the tank was setup previous (same rock too) so because it is new to me I'm going to test it and rule it out. After looking at the tank and rock work last night, and all the acros mounted since the pic I posted, I've decided not to remove the rock to individually test them....major PITA!

My guess is that the time I left it as a FO with elevated po4's is to blame. I'm mostly convinced it is the rock that is leaching but I'm really surprised since it has been a year since I've been running GFO and sporadically knocking them down with lanthum and these levels raise incredibly fast.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the nopox. I didn't see it having any significant effect on po4 levels. I've carbon dosed vodka, vinegar and even pellets at one point or another in the past and primarily only saw no3 reduction. Not knowing what is in the nopox I thought, perhaps, it might be different (even though it clearly smells like alcohol) and have some proprietary formula that does more to reduce po4's than the other methods.

I've had a few tanks over the years and I've never seen po4's raise so quickly. Heck, this tank was originally a FO for 7 years with super hi po4 levels before I converted it to a reef. I don't remember it taking this long for levels to stabilize, not to mention the levels in last year's FO were nowhere close to what they were years ago.

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced something similar with their rock when they've gone from high levels to trying to keep them low...?

 

[EricTheRed]

It's still leaching from the high PO4 from the FO time. Ime, 18 months is about the time it will take. If I were you I'd switch to Lanthanum chloride dosing to save some money on GFO. I use the Brightwell Phosphat-E. Don't dose a lot at a time, best used on a doser. I dose it into the overflow so it has lots of time in the sump to be filtered out by media or skimmer.

It the 10-gallon sump a typo? I imagine the way is speeding through that thing like nobody's business. You may have better results (better filtering) from the LC if you had a bigger sump with less velocity.

Thanks for easing my mind. It's only been a year since it was FO with high po4's. I just calculated the water volume in the sump to be 19.52g (3ft by 16" with 9" of water in it) so it doesn't actually flow through very quickly.

I've been dosing the LC when it gets high and I always dose into my overflow which feeds into a filter sock and then into skimmer chamber. I was using Phosphate RX but at my usage levels I recently bought an 8oz bottle of Agent Green from ATM (yep, the guys with the TV show) and it was significantly cheaper.

I'll stay the course and wait it out...hopefully another 6 months will do it, lol...

 

[EricTheRed]

Thanks for easing my mind. It's only been a year since it was FO with high po4's. I just calculated the water volume in the sump to be 19.52g (3ft by 16" with 9" of water in it) so it doesn't actually flow through very quickly.

I've been dosing the LC when it gets high and I always dose into my overflow which feeds into a filter sock and then into skimmer chamber. I was using Phosphate RX but at my usage levels I recently bought an 8oz bottle of Agent Green from ATM (yep, the guys with the TV show) and it was significantly cheaper.

I'll stay the course and wait it out...hopefully another 6 months will do it, lol...