phosphate leaching from rock and sand when does it end?

[ddc0715]

well, I'm still on the phosphate reduction ban wagon. as some of you know and if some of you do not here is what's going on and what i have done... 175g mixed reef.

i reduce my phosphates to .05-.09 and a few days later it's right back up to .2-.4. I use a Hannah checker and cross-check with a tropic marin kit.

1. preformed 5001 lc drips into 1-5 micron socks. phos lowers but rose right back up each night or overnight.
2. stopped auto-dosing ab+ and oyster feast.
3. the only two fish I have been on a 5--- 2mm pellet feeding every 2 days.
4. removed all my ceramic media in my sump.

phos still high .20-.40 i have no GH PROBLEM. the tank looks good. its odd i know, but true.

i have abandoned the LC DRIP and my new efforts are as follows

1. been running gfo ( started week before last +/-) in a 350 mls in a reactor (gfo cals say i needed 750 for my tank so i started low). phos dropped from .26 to .10 over 5 days but rose up to .35 on the 8th day.

2. preformed 40g wc on that day phos dropped to .09..... NICE.... however, two days after the wc im right back up to .25..

3. as of today ----i have restarted my auto dosing ( clearly ab+ and oyster feast not contributing to phos levels cause they have been off for several weeks)....and switched from ab+ to acro power and from oyster feast to reef snow. because why not.... plus I was worried that stuff that was just sitting in my DDR may have gone bad. perfect time for a switch.

4. gfo still running

WC SEEMS TO BE THE WAY. BUT PHOS is still being lowered EASLY and still rising on its own ( its a slower rise than before) but still rising

So two questions how long does this phos leeching ride last. because im ready to get off?
and is this a phos leeching problem that I am having?

future plan
i plan on doing several wc's over the next week at 40g a pop until my 200-gallon salt mix is gone. one 40g WC every two or three days. or until i stop seeing a rise in phos post-WC, WHICH EVER COMES FIRST..

I thought about dosing LC A few minutes before performing a wc, would that aid in catching more phos during the WC? I would be removing cloudy phos bonded water.

 

[nereefpat]

Keep at it. I think you're closer than you might think.
The water changes really don't help much with phosphates. They work great for nitrates.

phos dropped from .26 to .10 over 5 days but rose up to .35 on the 8th day.

To me, that means it's time to change the GFO. I think using small amounts of GFO, and changing it out when the P starts to rise, is a great plan.

 

[ReefGeezer]

I think LC is the most effective way to lower phosphate. Unfortunately, phosphate will rise back to an equilibrium level with that bound in the rock when you stop dosing. Best bet is just to keep dosing until it no longer longer an issue. Try not to make it a yo-yo kind of thing if you have hard corals. Just dose steadily to keep phosphate at some number you set... like maybe .03 ppm. When you notice that you have to slow the dose to maintain that number, it's time to stop it altogether and see where the equilibrium level is. Dose into the skimmer of 5um filter sock to be safe.

 

[killerbren]

I think you were on the right track by moving away from the LC and going to the gfo. I was in the exact same situation as you, except I had the GHA to go with it. I switched to GFO and my tank is way better, it took 2 months and now my fuge is keeping the phosphates down with no GFO at all. Not a single green hair in the tank anymore. Keep using small amounts of gfo and change out weekly, it should start getting better fairly soon.

 

[68 Stang]

I was beginning to fight rising Phosphates with a two year old tank. Same thing happened with my older two year old prior tank. Added cheto to assist but knew what my issue was! Fast forward to tank break down for a move across several states and I knew what I would observe during the breakdown. Moving rocks and removing sand. My sand was a cesspool of detritus and I mean CESSPOOL. Sure I stirred my sand, vacuumed my sand but obviously not nearly enough. When I set up my new tank with new sand I will rinse, rinse and rinse again my new sand. Install it and religiously stir and vacuum the sand. Not sure if this is your issue but worth mentioning to others as a solution to Phosphates rising on an established tank with no changes.

 

[ddc0715]

sandbed huh. i do have a deep sand bed that has never NEVER been vac'ed or stirred in 3 years. i wonder.

 

[moz71]

It took my tank 2 years but after that hard to keep them detectable now. Lol. Never ends!!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Each of my 150-gallon FOWLRs have phosphates greater than 10.0 ppm and Nitrates greater than 160 ppm... so I would be of absolutely no help to you. LOL!

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Each of my 150-gallon FOWLRs have phosphates greater than 160... so I would be of absolutely no help to you. LOL!

Is that 160 ppb or ppm?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

my tank is 1.5 years old, started with dry rocks, still leaching phosphate.......
@moz71 post is giving me hope I'm almost at the end.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Sorry -- meant to say "Nitrates" greater than 160 ppm. "Phosphates" off the charts, too, at more than 10.0 ppm. (Will edit the other post).

 

[nereefpat]

I don't know if vacuuming sand will help. Changing sand would help, but I wouldn't do that. Just keep up the LC and/or GFO. Especially if you're not having algae issues. Just keep at it.

 

[Lavey29]

As others stated. Water changes do essentially nothing to lower phosphate. .2 to .4 is elevated but not critical high in my opinion. It depends how your tank is responding. If your corals are happy and algae not an issue then I would just take slow corrective action to walk it down. It sounds like you are doing this now. Seems about 10 months in my phosphate stabilized as my fuge really came alive. I'll still drop a bag of phosguard in if needed to walk it down. Coral vitamins seem to be the biggest phosphate contributer for me.

 

[68 Stang]

sandbed huh. i do have a deep sand bed that has never NEVER been vac'ed or stirred in 3 years. i wonder.

I would venture to guess you would be very surprised at how much crap you have in your sand contributing to your rising phosphates. Look up rip clean on this site I think Brandon is the authors name.

 

[nereefpat]

Look up rip clean on this site I think Brandon is the authors name.

Oh, man. Just don't say his name 3 times

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would venture to guess you would be very surprised at how much crap you have in your sand contributing to your rising phosphates. Look up rip clean on this site I think Brandon is the authors name.

FWIW, it's tricky to distinguish phosphate bound to the sand itself, and degradation of detritus in the sand, but as folks have mentioned, even detritus free sand can bind huge amounts of phosphate once it is exposed to elevated phosphate.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

Also, extremely porous rock like Pukani can trap detritus and continue to leech nutrients if flow cant get them clean. Same for deteitus trapped in rockwork of not routinely blown off

 

[jda]

It can take months.

Unbinding is a better word than leeching.

I just got about 300 lbs of really nice real tukani from a torn down tank. It was loaded with P and tested over what my Hannah Ultra Low could read. While in a 150g rubbemade bin, I dosed a lot of LC every day until the water-level amount barely changed in a 24 hour period. Then, I had to wait 3-4 days for enough P to be unbound to rise the water level so that the LC could go to work. Now, I am at weekly doses. Eventually, I will have to wait until every other week to add more LC. I expect that after 4-5 months, I will be happy with the level in the rock. I want it to be at the 1-3 ppb level before I use it.

I have a Tunze skimmer on the tub which removes the flocculant.

The rock can unbind for a long time. The inner parts of porous rock can have it bound too, so it takes a while for lower concentration water to get in there to allow the unbinding.

One example, a local had a 180g that he let get out of hand reading some of the once-popular posts about tank po4 not mattering... he was like at 1.0-1.5 ppm. He used 2 5 gallon buckets of GFO before he got it down to like .05, or something close to that. The aragonite can bind A LOT.

For another example, I helped another friend who just added 2 drops of raw SeaKlear a day into the overflow for like almost a year. This slowly and surely lowered his po4 and they have stayed low. He was not willing to risk going too slow.

 

[ReefCheef]

It can take months.

Unbinding is a better word than leeching.

I just got about 300 lbs of really nice real tukani from a torn down tank. It was loaded with P and tested over what my Hannah Ultra Low could read. While in a 150g rubbemade bin, I dosed a lot of LC every day until the water-level amount barely changed in a 24 hour period. Then, I had to wait 3-4 days for enough P to be unbound to rise the water level so that the LC could go to work. Now, I am at weekly doses. Eventually, I will have to wait until every other week to add more LC. I expect that after 4-5 months, I will be happy with the level in the rock. I want it to be at the 1-3 ppb level before I use it.

I have a Tunze skimmer on the tub which removes the flocculant.

The rock can unbind for a long time. The inner parts of porous rock can have it bound too, so it takes a while for lower concentration water to get in there to allow the unbinding.

One example, a local had a 180g that he let get out of hand reading some of the once-popular posts about tank po4 not mattering... he was like at 1.0-1.5 ppm. He used 2 5 gallon buckets of GFO before he got it down to like .05, or something close to that. The aragonite can bind A LOT.

For another example, I helped another friend who just added 2 drops of raw SeaKlear a day into the overflow for like almost a year. This slowly and surely lowered his po4 and they have stayed low. He was not willing to risk going too slow.

Finally, a comprehensive, coherent post on lanthanum use. Brilliant writeup. Only had to read through every post on over 100 threads to find one coherent answer.

 

[MIke Wood]

well, I'm still on the phosphate reduction ban wagon. as some of you know and if some of you do not here is what's going on and what i have done... 175g mixed reef.

i reduce my phosphates to .05-.09 and a few days later it's right back up to .2-.4. I use a Hannah checker and cross-check with a tropic marin kit.

1. preformed 5001 lc drips into 1-5 micron socks. phos lowers but rose right back up each night or overnight.
2. stopped auto-dosing ab+ and oyster feast.
3. the only two fish I have been on a 5--- 2mm pellet feeding every 2 days.
4. removed all my ceramic media in my sump.

phos still high .20-.40 i have no GH PROBLEM. the tank looks good. its odd i know, but true.

i have abandoned the LC DRIP and my new efforts are as follows

1. been running gfo ( started week before last +/-) in a 350 mls in a reactor (gfo cals say i needed 750 for my tank so i started low). phos dropped from .26 to .10 over 5 days but rose up to .35 on the 8th day.

2. preformed 40g wc on that day phos dropped to .09..... NICE.... however, two days after the wc im right back up to .25..

3. as of today ----i have restarted my auto dosing ( clearly ab+ and oyster feast not contributing to phos levels cause they have been off for several weeks)....and switched from ab+ to acro power and from oyster feast to reef snow. because why not.... plus I was worried that stuff that was just sitting in my DDR may have gone bad. perfect time for a switch.

4. gfo still running

WC SEEMS TO BE THE WAY. BUT PHOS is still being lowered EASLY and still rising on its own ( its a slower rise than before) but still rising

So two questions how long does this phos leeching ride last. because im ready to get off?
and is this a phos leeching problem that I am having?

future plan
i plan on doing several wc's over the next week at 40g a pop until my 200-gallon salt mix is gone. one 40g WC every two or three days. or until i stop seeing a rise in phos post-WC, WHICH EVER COMES FIRST..

I thought about dosing LC A few minutes before performing a wc, would that aid in catching more phos during the WC? I would be removing cloudy phos bonded water.

just listened to a reef therapy podcast on the way to work today where the guest said he had a client with a tank in the 1.0 po4 range. he ended up dosing a ton of live phyto let it circulate for a few hours then had the skimmer remove it. he said the po4 dropped to normal that day.