Phosphate issues 5 + years

[KrisReef]

Yes, the copper precipitates onto the rock the same as phosphate and will leach back into the water also.

 

[Bunnee911]

I was in your exact place 4 years ago. Switched to coral from a 20 year old fowlr. 30% water changes did the trick, but it took 18 months. I had turf algae in two colors. Oh weekly wc.

If I did it again, I would check on lanthanum chloride.

 

[Javier Leon]

Ok thanks for reading , this is going to be a long post.
So ive been in saltwater for about 20 yrs, over those years I have bought and sold live rock from my tank. I had a fowlr for number of years. Yes I was an over feeder and overstocked tank. The tank started out as a 125g and was upgraded to a 220 at which time I bought more live rock( about ten years ago) I never really worried about phosphate until about 5 yrs ago. I was keeping coralsbut mostly softies and anenomes . But I could never keep torches frogspawn, xzenia, acans etc,(the list goes on). I started to do some testing and found my po4 was off the chart. api test kits were reading as high as the 10. ppm that right 10. not .10, so I started using gfo and doing weekly water changes. Spent a small fortune on gfo. Only to have it go down and then right back up. My equipment was always underated for what I kept till about 5 yrs ago. so for the last 5 yrs ive been running gfo which ive givin up on as it doesn't last long. I was dosing vinegar for a while, and recently (past year ) phos rx . My phos is at 2.o as I type this. I can use the phos rx and get it down to .10-.20 but only for it to climb back up within a week or two.
I don't think im over stocked my tank is 220g plus 75g sump plus 30 frag tank, few corals couple nens. Fish are sailfin tang hippo tang,yellow tang, purple, tang, kole , tang 2 watchmen goby and 3 clowns. I have only been feeding them nls pellets and nori3-4 times a week. Not over feeding amounts. This has been a couple years at this rate.
So I know the obvious answer is leeching from the live rock, But how long and how much can possibly be stored in the rock. (guessing 200-250 lbs worth ) I really don't want to dismantle my tank and live rock if im not 100% sure. Is there any ways to determine it is the rock.
Also could this much reside in my substrate (about one inch thick in the 220g)

Also something to consider was about ten years ago in the fowlr (same rock today) I had a bad case of ich i battled for a while . I ended up treating with cuparmine (seachem) in the display tank ( I know bad idea) I used the product they recommended to meto take out of tank (think it was cupri sorb ) it took about 9 months to get the copper undetectable. I still see no traces of copper leeching out but wonder if that could have something to do with all the phosphate.

Im to the point I am thinking of replacing all the rock and substrate , but I don't want to do it if it isn't needed. Is there a way to tell for sure?

ICP tritón test method is going to tell you what exactly is in the water and you’ll take it from there in my humble opinion I will start from there. And after your result arrived then you’ll proceed with what is needed.

 

[Stigigemla]

Iron based phosphate remover will slowly take up the copper and aluminium. I guess the aluminium value comes from aluminium based phosphate remover.
If the phosphate equlibrium between water and stone is linear you have removed most of the phosphate now. It was 10 mg/l in equlibrium in the water now it is less then 1.
So dont give up now when You have done most of the job.
Normally Lanthanum cloride is the most cost effective but in order to get rid of the extra copper and aluminum I recommend iron based phosphate remover from now on.
But the equlibrium is slow so I guess it will take You half a Year to have perfect values.

 

[joeyt66]

Iron based phosphate remover will slowly take up the copper and aluminium. I guess the aluminium value comes from aluminium based phosphate remover.
If the phosphate equlibrium between water and stone is linear you have removed most of the phosphate now. It was 10 mg/l in equlibrium in the water now it is less then 1.
So dont give up now when You have done most of the job.
Normally Lanthanum cloride is the most cost effective but in order to get rid of the extra copper and aluminum I recommend iron based phosphate remover from now on.
But the equlibrium is slow so I guess it will take You half a Year to have perfect values.

Thanks for the info. What iron based phos remover would you recommend. The icp test was done in January and the phos has raised slowly to 2.13 ppm as of sunday. but has come down from 1o lol

 

[joeyt66]

Thinking of pulling some rock out of my sump to confirm that it is the rock. Any methods recommended. Do I need to use salt water? I read somewhere that you can use ro water nut with the die off on the rock wouldn't that elevate the phos level?

 

[joeyt66]

Just wanted to take a min to say thanks for all the help, Ive been a member on other forums for a longtime and have never gotten this type of responses. Usually theres arguimg etc, and the topic gets off topic and dies.
Thanks for all your support

 

[Stigigemla]

You just gave me a new angel to look at it. Personally i would vacuum out all sand. If you have sandsleeping wrasses just give them a tray with a few pounds new sand. The sand is holding a lot of Phosphate too.
I dont know much about the American market so I guess I would try BRS. In Europe I would begin with some cheap brand and make an IPS test when the value is down to 0.1.
Rowaphos is probably better in taking away excessive metals but if they are gone I wouldnt take that extra cost.

 

[joeyt66]

You just gave me a new angel to look at it. Personally i would vacuum out all sand. If you have sandsleeping wrasses just give them a tray with a few pounds new sand. The sand is holding a lot of Phosphate too.
I dont know much about the American market so I guess I would try BRS. In Europe I would begin with some cheap brand and make an IPS test when the value is down to 0.1.
Rowaphos is probably better in taking away excessive metals but if they are gone I wouldnt take that extra cost.

I have started a bit of a test myself. Mixed some new sw in a 5 g bucket. Tested phos and added about 10 lbs of live rock from the tank. I’ll monitor this and see.
I also thought of siphoning the sand out. I likely will with my next water change. Planning about 100 g on a roughly 300 g system. Should be fine.

 

[joeyt66]

So I mixed up some new sw 1.025 same as my display tank. Put it in a 5 g bucket tested and it read 0.15 phosphate. Added some live rock into the bucket from my tank. Roughly 30 hours later I get a reading of 2.31
So obviously that tells me it’s the live rock leaching. Now I’m not sure what my next step should be. Either battle the phos. Or rip out rock an substrate an start over.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Have you tested your RODI water to be sure you are also not adding po4 from there as well?

 

[greg 45]

Check your make up water after the di / this might be adding also

 

[joeyt66]

Have you tested your RODI water to be sure you are also not adding po4 from there as well?

Yes
There is a bit of phosphate. I’m on a well but use rodi
Did test Sunday from ro unit I was getting a 0.15.
Straight from tap was 0.02
Odd results. I’m going to retest to confirm.

 

[joeyt66]

UPDATE!!!!
Ok so as it has been going with this tank it takes a weird turn
So day one starting point for phosphate is 0.15. Next day after addin live rock phos jumps to 2.32. Day two test it dropped to 1.68. Day three I test and get 1.56
what the heck is goin on. Lol

 

[joeyt66]

Yes
There is a bit of phosphate. I’m on a well but use rodi
Did test Sunday from ro unit I was getting a 0.15.
Straight from tap was 0.02
Odd results. I’m going to retest to confirm.

I retested moments ago
From rodi unit is 0.00
From tap is 0.06
I might have used the first bit of ro water out of the outlet with out running it through for a bit.
I let the ro run for 30 min before I got a sample

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

So I mixed up some new sw 1.025 same as my display tank. Put it in a 5 g bucket tested and it read 0.15 phosphate. Added some live rock into the bucket from my tank. Roughly 30 hours later I get a reading of 2.31
So obviously that tells me it’s the live rock leaching. Now I’m not sure what my next step should be. Either battle the phos. Or rip out rock an substrate an start over.

Were these readings in PPM? If so, I think your line of thinking is correct. Placing live rock in the water with almost no phosphates and observing an increase is a good indicator that the rock is the source of the PO4. Aragonite has an incredible ability to bind phosphate. One member on these forums did a test and found that in 5 gallons of water, one pound of live rock absorbed up to 52 ppm of phosphate. If you have a lot of rock that has been absorbing PO4 for years, it's going to take a while to get it all out.

Lanthanum chloride is a ruthlessly aggressive phosphate binder and might be a good choice given your observed phosphate levels and tank size. You can get it in large quantities like this pool phosphate remover. Get some 10 micron (or smaller) filter socks like another member advised. The most important thing is to go slow: drip a dilute solution of the phosphate remover into the sock. Test the phosphates the next day and see what the results are. If they're still high dose the solution again. If you see no significant movement in a few days, make the solution a bit stronger and repeat.

Two caveats here though. First, be careful to not let too much of the precipitant get into your tank. While some aquarists report no issues with exposing their fish to the precipitated lanthanum phosphate, others have lost fish to it. Second, monitor your carbonate alkalinity closely during the process. Alkalinity can also be bound as lanthanum carbonate, so you might need to supplement alkalinity during this process.

It's worth noting that 0.16 ppm is a bit high for freshly mixed saltwater in terms of phosphate, but that doesn't appear to be the big issue right now. The big issue appears to be the accumulated phosphate in the rocks.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Also worth noting, an algae scrubber or macroalgae refugium would also be effective in this case. You may need to supplement nitrates so that the algae is not nitrate-limited, but algae is a pretty simple and fool-proof solution.

 

[Neoalchemist]

I believe you mentioned having a frag tank plumbed in to the system? If it were me I would probably empty the frags and turn the frag tank into a large mixed macro refugium. At the same time I would start gradually replacing the sand bed. Along with normal ( or slightly aggressive) levels of phosphorus removal.

 

[Neoalchemist]

I'll bet your local club would help with macro algea donations if asked, especially in your case.

 

[joeyt66]

I'll bet your local club would help with macro algea donations if asked, especially in your case.

I don’t have any local clubs in the area. Actually been thinking of starting one.
I do have an area where I grow chaeto. But it doesn’t grow like you’d think with the phosphate levels what they are.