Need advise phosphate gradually raising.

kyleshaw81503 · Nov 29, 2022

Phosphate slowly rising started at .04 then .08 then it hit .14 so I do a water change, test the next day and I’m at .34. This has all happened in the past 2 weeks. My question is should I use some gfo? only reason I’m thinking gfo is my nitrates are getting lower due to water changes. Which is not lowering phos. Nitrate at 4.4 right now.

homer1475 · Nov 29, 2022

At .34 I would intervene. Yes GFO will work, but go slow with it. You can strip your water to fast with GFO.

I would use a quarter of whats recommended for your tank volume, then test in a couple days.

thatmanMIKEson · Nov 29, 2022

kyleshaw81503 said:
Phosphate slowly rising started at .04 then .08 then it hit .14 so I do a water change, test the next day and I’m at .34. This has all happened in the past 2 weeks. My question is should I use some gfo? only reason I’m thinking gfo is my nitrates are getting lower due to water changes. Which is not lowering phos. Nitrate at 4.4 right now.

Do you use a skimmer?

Dburr1014 · Nov 29, 2022

kyleshaw81503 said:
Phosphate slowly rising started at .04 then .08 then it hit .14 so I do a water change, test the next day and I’m at .34. This has all happened in the past 2 weeks. My question is should I use some gfo? only reason I’m thinking gfo is my nitrates are getting lower due to water changes. Which is not lowering phos. Nitrate at 4.4 right now.

Water changes don't help to lower po4. It's getting bound to the rock and sand.
If your feeding pellets and flake food, stop.
Try feeding frozen instead and see if that helps.
Also what test kit?

Duffer · Nov 29, 2022

Dburr1014 said:
Water changes don't help to lower po4. It's getting bound to the rock and sand.
If your feeding pellets and flake food, stop.
Try feeding frozen instead and see if that helps.
Also what test kit?

Bingo...i love this response...many folks think doing water changes will help with phosphates...where it will only take out the phosphates that are in the water column..

doubleshot00 · Nov 29, 2022

Curious about the tank.
How old is the tank?
How much are you feeding?
How large is the tank?

kyleshaw81503 · Nov 29, 2022

Dburr1014 said:
Water changes don't help to lower po4. It's getting bound to the rock and sand.
If your feeding pellets and flake food, stop.
Try feeding frozen instead and see if that helps.
Also what test kit?

Exclusively only feeding frozen mysis shrimp and using Hanna checkers.

Spare time · Nov 29, 2022

Add a pinch of gfo in a bag or with carbon

kyleshaw81503 · Nov 29, 2022

thatmanMIKEson said:
Do you use a skimmer?

I did for a little bit then found out I was taking too many nutrients out of the water so I pulled the Cheato and skimmer. Just put the skimmer on a couple days ago.

kyleshaw81503 · Nov 29, 2022

So I checked phosphate this afternoon and had a reading of .11. So looks like it’s coming down but I’m also going to take some water in to my LFS cause seems like my checker is all over the place.

kyleshaw81503 · Nov 29, 2022

doubleshot00 said:
Curious about the tank.
How old is the tank?
How much are you feeding?
How large is the tank?

13 month old Biocube 32 gal,feeding 1-2 frozen cubes of mysis shrimp.

ZoWhat · Nov 29, 2022

Best way to lower PO4 is to take up baseball card collecting instead

MadHatter'sReef · Nov 29, 2022

Have you tested your source water for Phosphate? Seems weird that it would jump that high after a water change.

ninjamyst · Nov 29, 2022

My money is on Hanna. I just bought one and used it for the first time. Pain in the butt and so prone to user error. Have you tried running two tests within 5 mins of each other?