Im looking for some advice on my phosphate numbers that I can't seem to lower. Here is the situation..
60 gallon shallow reef tank, 40 gallon sump, about 75 gallon total water volume. Typical setup, chaeto in fuge compartment.
Tank is 3 months old. Started with one year old live rock from the lfs and a couple big chunks of fake rock from brs. Tank is full of frags, about 10 zoa frags, 15 sps, a clam, 2 frog spawn, and a bubble tip.
All levels are in ideal range. I test pretty much everyday as I need to keep levels stable witg the dreaded "immature tank" .
I went through a diatom cycle, add some phosguard, and they disappeares. Phos was about .36 at the time. Water changes, and another fresh bag of phosguard got phos down to .16.
I received a boat load of sps frags from a friend and this is when I started panicking about phos levels. The sps have been in for 3 weeks and are all doing well, no browning, decent poly extension. Bubble tip is fine. Chaeto growing well in sump... but started getting brown, hair like algae. Lots of it.
I bought a carbon/gfo reactor two weeks ago and started it up with a cup of gfo. Phos went down to .8 and o thought.. ok it's working. Couple days later.. it's rising.. judging on color, i would say .11 or so. I thought perhaps gfo was exhausted. I changed the gfo last night and thought.. I will test the effluent from the gfo reactor.. it's the same as the tank water.
Uggh. Any suggestions for me?
60 gallon shallow reef tank, 40 gallon sump, about 75 gallon total water volume. Typical setup, chaeto in fuge compartment.
Tank is 3 months old. Started with one year old live rock from the lfs and a couple big chunks of fake rock from brs. Tank is full of frags, about 10 zoa frags, 15 sps, a clam, 2 frog spawn, and a bubble tip.
All levels are in ideal range. I test pretty much everyday as I need to keep levels stable witg the dreaded "immature tank" .
I went through a diatom cycle, add some phosguard, and they disappeares. Phos was about .36 at the time. Water changes, and another fresh bag of phosguard got phos down to .16.
I received a boat load of sps frags from a friend and this is when I started panicking about phos levels. The sps have been in for 3 weeks and are all doing well, no browning, decent poly extension. Bubble tip is fine. Chaeto growing well in sump... but started getting brown, hair like algae. Lots of it.
I bought a carbon/gfo reactor two weeks ago and started it up with a cup of gfo. Phos went down to .8 and o thought.. ok it's working. Couple days later.. it's rising.. judging on color, i would say .11 or so. I thought perhaps gfo was exhausted. I changed the gfo last night and thought.. I will test the effluent from the gfo reactor.. it's the same as the tank water.
Uggh. Any suggestions for me?
