Overnight Phosphate spike

[Davisc1293]

Ive been battling dinos with silicate dosing while bring my nutrients up. What could cause my phosphate levels go from .05 to .5 in 24hrs? All I've feed today was nori.

 

[Reefahholic]

Ive been battling dinos with silicate dosing while bring my nutrients up. What could cause my phosphate levels go from .05 to .5 in 24hrs? All I've feed today was nori.

The same thing happened to a friend of mine. His went from .1 ppm to .56 ppm. Not sure what caused it. He had been dosing PO4 but stopped A couple to several weeks prior he said. I know anything Calcium Carbonate can bind PO4, but I typically haven’t seen it leech an amount that large in one day. Not sure if it can or not.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Phosphate will vary as food gets digested, released into the water, and then taken up or bound to rock and sand.

That may be what you are seeing, or it may be test error, or both.

 

[Davisc1293]

I have been dosing silicates and phosphate but also test daily. Have not been doing water changes just syphonig dinos through a 5 micron filter sock. Not likely testing error as i retested again with 2 kits.

 

[jda]

Did you do something before the .05 test to remove a bunch of phosphate from the water column? GFO, Lan Chloride or the like?

 

[Davisc1293]

Did you do something before the .05 test to remove a bunch of phosphate from the water column? GFO, Lan Chloride or the like?

I was dosing phosphate daily just to keep it at .05 roughly 1.5 ml of neophos but always tested before I dosed and only dosed enough to keep it above .01-.02. The day it spiked I did not dose phosphate just silica and syphoned dinos through a filter sock.

 

[Davisc1293]

I did put my skimmer cup back on and ran phosguard overnight and it dropped back down to .14 ppm as of last night.

 

[Davisc1293]

At what levels will phosphate bind to the rocks? I finally got my phosphate down to .03 last night so i pulled the gfo and minimally fed a cube of mysis and water is back up to .1 PO4 24hrs later.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

At what levels will phosphate bind to the rocks? I finally got my phosphate down to .03 last night so i pulled the gfo and minimally fed a cube of mysis and water is back up to .1 PO4 24hrs later.

Phosphate binds to bare calcium carbonate at essentially all concentrations. More in the water means more will bind.

 

[Davisc1293]

Phosphate binds to bare calcium carbonate at essentially all concentrations. More in the water means more will bind.

I'm aiming for .02-.04 and as I mentioned I was able to bring it down to .03 but shot right back to .1 in 24 hrs. So i did put the gfo back in when i got home tonight, after testing. Any advise on how long should I continue to run gfo even after i get it down to where i want. My biggest fear is now stripping too much out and promoting dinos again as Im just getting over that 4-6month long battle.