Looking for some thoughts. I can not get my phosphates down, stuck above .35 and going up now. I keep trying and trying without luck. I'm running gfo and still not having luck. I've tried dosing phosphate e and even at half the dose run thru a filter sock and floss the precipitate is killing corals now. I'm currently sitting at .71 now via hanna check and I was gone on vacation for the past 7 days and it went from .53 to .71 currently and only fed 2 cubes over the week. Any thoughts, input, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. TIA
Phophate will not come down
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Wasabiroot
Valonia Slayer
What is your nutrient export like? Do you run a skimmer? Refugium? Etc? How old is the tank?
Sphinxj13
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Skimmer runs 24/7. No refugium. Usually bi-weekly wc's. 180gallon tank. I've been running rowaphos and barely even touches it. Tank has been running for 3yrs now and transferred livestock from my smaller 120g tank which was running for over 5yrs and never had phosphate issues like this.
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
What is your nitrate level?
I run high phos with no issues... close to 1.0 most of the time.
Don't chase numbers...
I run high phos with no issues... close to 1.0 most of the time.
Don't chase numbers...
EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal
Just another girl who likes fish
I ran phos at 1 and nitrates at 50-60 for a long time with no problem. Every tank is different and some just find their happy spot at different points. Your rock is probably releasing phosphate as soon as the GFO, etc removes it, so you're not really making much difference using more of that... You might try to increase the photoperiod to your refugium to let the algae consume more nutrients
Edit: I keep mostly LPS.
Lavey29
10K Club member
I had the same issues past few months on 2 year old tank. Standard stuff like GFO no longer education work. Rocks and sand are saturated with phosphate. Switched to half dose of phosphate RX. Worked great to bring levels down
Lavey29
10K Club member
I've been using it 3 or 4 weeks now with no visible distress. I started off with very low dose and moved up to half dose. Once I saw results, I moved back down to low dose to sustain and now about every 3 days. The trick is to get your rocks and sand to use up all their saturated phosphate. Then you get back to en equilibrium level you can maintain with basic methods or simple additives. My LFS says it can take a month or so to drain out the phosphate saturation.
Lavey29
10K Club member
Mine crept up to .51 at the high but everything in the tank was huge so I pondered whether I should lower or not but I kept having nightmares waking up to a huge algae issue or some other serious problem. I'm at .09 this morning.
Dennis Cartier
Valuable Member
Like Lavey, I also use LaCl for phosphate control. The key is too dilute it heavily and dose it slow. Like really, really, slooooow. You want to catch and remove the precipitate to keep it away from your corals and so it does not cause your PO4 tests to ready artificially high.
I was at 0.59 recently, and have spent the past few months slowly pulling it down. I have a DIY reactor that I built, so I can run it 24x7 and coax it from the rocks and substrate until I have it low enough to use other means. Note: LaCl becomes less effective and starts to impact alkalinity under 0.20 ppm.
Here is my method of using it:
I was at 0.59 recently, and have spent the past few months slowly pulling it down. I have a DIY reactor that I built, so I can run it 24x7 and coax it from the rocks and substrate until I have it low enough to use other means. Note: LaCl becomes less effective and starts to impact alkalinity under 0.20 ppm.
Here is my method of using it:
Lavey29
10K Club member
GFO works but it gets burned out in a day or two then the saturation of phosphates in rock and sand bring number back up again. You would have to change GFO daily or every other day.
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I think there is a misconception that "it is not doing anything".
If you are removing phosphate and it is leaching from the rock to find equilibrium... you are still removing phosphate... It will just take longer as you have to deplete the stored phosphate as well as the free phosphate.
Sphinxj13
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I agree. I think that it's doing something but think that it's leaching from the rocks or substrate. I've debated on replacing the rock due to the issue but I don't want to cut my pod size in like half.
Sphinxj13
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I agree that the gfo is getting burned out also but would have thought that by now the rocks or substrate would be depleted. I know the hobby is pricey but changing 1 cup of gfo every day or other would add up drastically.
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My Take?
You hit that 3 year mark where the tank is mature, but not mature
I panicked at about the same time and almost killed everything with Lanthanum.... ~20 years later (same tank, same water, no water changes in almost a decade) I run somewhere around .3 and it was up over 1.0 way back then. Sucked out sand, changed out rock, dosed LaCL, etc. All I did was make a mess and irritate the snot out of everything.
I would not panick - just keep running the GFO and maybe some Chemipure - water changes as normal and watch the feeding.
It will eventually come down. It will just take time.
