Need help with Phosphate

[Deanna77]

Everything in my tank seems fine, but I can’t get my phosphate down.
35 gallon tank, 1.5 years old
pH: 7.9
Amm: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate: 5
Calcium: 400
kH: 11
Temp: 79
Sal: 1.024
Phosphate is 1.0!

I use rodi and recently tested it - 0 phosphate

I’ve tested my salt mix, also 0 phosphate
I’ve been using Phosguard and changing it weekly. I’ve gone back to rinsing the frozen mysis before feedings.

I’ve been doing weekly 20% water changes to try to get the phosphate down. The gains are short lived.

I’ve recently bought a different test kit because I thought maybe my API might be old. Salifert reads the same.

Does anyone have an idea how the phosphate is getting in/accumulating or have suggestions to get it down?

 

[blaxsun]

Two Little Fishies Phos-Ban works great.

 

[Snoopy 67]

All foods contain phosphate & it could be in the rockwork.

 

[cocoReefer]

Ive heard that your rocks and sand can get saturated with phosphate and leach quickly. Maybe up the amount of phosgaurd for a bit?

 

[bnord]

do you have a media reactor of any sort?

When mine creeps up (and it does) I back off the pellets, and add a little bit of granular ferric oxide (GFO) mixed with some carbon and it comes right down

and if indeed it is leaching from the rocks, this will be something you might want to look into

good luck

 

[Lavey29]

Water changes really do nothing to bring phosphate down only nitrates. Try raising your nitrates to 10 and continue with phosguard and phosphate should start walking down slowly.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I struggled for a year, and then bought the 2 little fishies phosban reactor, and after struggling for one full year, it was solved overnight, its really unbelievable.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Everything in my tank seems fine, but I can’t get my phosphate down.
35 gallon tank, 1.5 years old
pH: 7.9
Amm: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate: 5
Calcium: 400
kH: 11
Temp: 79
Sal: 1.024
Phosphate is 1.0!

I use rodi and recently tested it - 0 phosphate

I’ve tested my salt mix, also 0 phosphate
I’ve been using Phosguard and changing it weekly. I’ve gone back to rinsing the frozen mysis before feedings.

I’ve been doing weekly 20% water changes to try to get the phosphate down. The gains are short lived.

I’ve recently bought a different test kit because I thought maybe my API might be old. Salifert reads the same.

Does anyone have an idea how the phosphate is getting in/accumulating or have suggestions to get it down?

What test kit are you using ?
ChemiPure elite will bring it down and keep it in check safely. Reduce feedings a little also.
By chance are you feeding your coral reef roids ?

 

[Deanna77]

Thanks for all your replies, suggestions and experiences. I’ll keep at it with the phosguard and look into the Little Fishies Phosban reactor.

 

[Deanna77]

What test kit are you using ?
ChemiPure elite will bring it down and keep it in check safely. Reduce feedings a little also.
By chance are you feeding your coral reef roids ?

I do feed reef roids about once a week. Is that a significant source of phosphates?

 

[helijamal]

i found reef roids spiked my phosphates and stopped using it.

 

[rhostam]

I do feed reef roids about once a week. Is that a significant source of phosphates?

Yes. It appears there are a lot of anecdotes. General consensus is that PO4 is higher in dried foods, and NO3 is higher in frozen foods. I personally have yet to do an experiment to confirm either way.

I mixed a batch of food and didn’t notice I had added ReefRoids (changed packaging). Anyhow, weeks later I tested phophate because duncans were looking upset. Sure enough! 0.45 ppm PO4. Far cry from my typical readings of 0.04ish.

I’ve been using GFO, extra filtration, reformulated feed, stopped ReefRoids, reduced feeding schedule. I tried even aggressive incremental water change.

Clearly, there was a lot of bound up PO4 in the rocks and/ or sand. Finally, it’s starting to go down… but after all this time still only by half! I imagine I’ll have to treat the system until I’ve leeched it all out. Or as much as I can.

It’s fine. I understand abrupt changes can be stressful, and the corals mostly seem to be happy except for the few that took turns for the worse. So I’m okay with gradual decline.

I’ve vacuumed the sump. I have also ordered some roller fleece mats. I’m also looking into a better more easily used reactor in case this happens again.

 

[CoralB]

Phosphat-E from brightwell works for me !!!

 

[Tankkeepers]

Ive heard that your rocks and sand can get saturated with phosphate and leach quickly. Maybe up the amount of phosgaurd for a bit?

This is somewhat correct it will balance and bring the amount in the water up fast but it'll take a month or more to actually leach them out of the rock

 

[Tankkeepers]

Also the key to feeding is feed as much and as often as you would like it will not change your water parameters untill it starts to break down so as long as you remove it before this happens no nutrient issues



I feed so much it looks like a storm just raining food on everything then once everything is done I turn everything back on stir everything up into the water that settled and pull it out via a 100 micro filter pad let it run for a few hours and remove pad



I buy pad in bulk so it's cheap a sock would also probmy work