Phosphate help.

[rhostam]

40g AIO tank. 5 months old. Lights kicked on after 4 months. Dry rock/live sand. LPS dominate. Weekly 15% water changes. Like to keep nitrates around 10ppm. Alk 9.8 Calcium 480 Mg 1470. 1.026 78.4 degrees.

Phosphate is currently .24. Never had phosphate readings under .12. I feed TDO pellets once a day and basically hand feed so nothing hits the ground. Started Chemipure elite a month ago last time my phosphates hit .20 and it cut them almost in half but yesterday it was back up to .24. Here's the thing...the corals look great. I spot feed LPS pellets and some roids twice a week.

So...is .24 really that bad? Do I add another GFO bag/reactor? Dose Lanthanum Chloride? Is this just from the rocks and just let it do its thing? I know TDO raises phosphate but could it really be that with my stingy feeding?

Thanks in advance!

How fortuitous I came across your post today.

My phosphates are just under 0.40 ppm. It’s driving me nuts!

I’ve been working over the past six weeks or so to reduce them by doing the following actions:

• added GFO reactor
• reduced pellet feeding (AFS) by 30%
• 30% continuous/ incremental water change

My refugium is flourishing. Most corals, as well. But I did have several corals that took a turn for the worst after a year of doing quite well. Duncans, a lobophyllia, and two cynarinas. Their loss devastated me.

Naturally, I also have some issues with GHA.

Phosphate hovers at around 0.40 ppm no matter what I do.

I did read today that dried foods are 5-10 times more nutritionally dense than frozen food. I cleaned my skimmer today and holy smokes!! So maybe I’m still feeding too much.

My next step is to stop AFS and feed frozen over the next week and see what happens.

Again, everything that survived otherwise “looks fine.” I just recalibrated Trident and numbers are lower than they appeared before the recalibration.

pH 8.1-8.25
SG 1.025
Alk 9.25
CA 489
MG 1214
NO3 10~
Temp 77.5-78
ORP 423

 

[troliva0007]

phyto and pods is always nice additions, but if you have fish they'll prob just eat em all real quick. If you are spot feeding the LPS once or twice a week that's plenty. My guess is with 3 weeks of the lights on the coral are fairly new to the tank. I wouldn't really try to "filter" anything out for now, as you can create an issue and have dinos or something else that'll be a mess. "Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank". Took my dry rock about 7 months to settle in and keep my phosphates around .06, the rocks will leech phosphates for awhile.

High phosphates allegedly hamper the uptake of carbonate for the coral to form it's skeleton btw.

I have phosphates 0.90 or above and I have my set up running since September 2021 any advice to lower? I’ve tried chaeto but it doesn’t do well, chemi pure keeps the tank crystal clear, brightwell phosphates E only stresses my coral. I stopped feeding reef roids for a month but phos is still high. 35% Water change is done every two weeks

 

[troliva0007]

I have phosphates 0.90 or above and I have my set up running since September 2021 any advice to lower? I’ve tried chaeto but it doesn’t do well, chemi pure keeps the tank crystal clear, brightwell phosphates E only stresses my coral. I stopped feeding reef roids for a month but phos is still high. 35% Water change is done every two weeks

 

[RBarth]

PhosGuard worked great for me. Rowa phos also excellent but it is STRONG.

 

[troliva0007]

PhosGuard worked great for me. Rowa phos also excellent but it is STRONG.

Okay I will attempt that route, and will update on the status.

 

[troliva0007]

Okay I will attempt that route, and will update on the status.

Thank you!

 

[RBarth]

No worries! Took me a week to get from .24 to .05. I just put it in a media bag and changed it every 2 days. I used the recommended amount on the bottle. Evidently with Rowa Phos use half the recommended dose. I'm not using it anymore and phosphate has held steady at .05. I do believe my high phosphate was due to the rock in my tank as someone suggested and once it did its thing its over...hopefully lol.

 

[Saltyanimals]

Search for aluminum and phosguard. I noticed the increase in my ICP and stopped using it.

PhosGuard worked great for me. Rowa phos also excellent but it is STRONG.