Phosphate sky high after sand bed removal

[Willbiker]

Hi all.

I have been slowly removing my sandbed over the last 3 weeks. I'm 3/4 of the way through removing it by siphoning it out with water changes.

My sand bed was 9 months old and looked super clean (except dinos), no obvious trapped detritus. My phosphate has jumped right up to around 0.3. Nitrates have also jumped up to 20ppm. Even after a 10% water change.

Could it be the sand bed removal which has caused this? I have 0 ammonia. Should I act on this or just wait for gfo to lower it? I have a bottle of microbacter7, should I dose?
Should I be worried? No obvious signs of coral stress.

 

[Reef Jeff]

Need a little more information:
1. Do you know what the NO3 and PO4 levels were before you removed the sand bed?
2. Give us an idea how much live rock is in the tank.
3. What filtration system are you using?
4. How many fish and how many gallons of water in your system?

Knowing the above will help give you better suggestions. It is possible you had bound up PO4 in the sandbed that released during removal.

Until then, And regardless if it came from the sand bed, I will suggest some things that work for me. I dose nitrates and phosphates to keep a low balance. Once I mistakenly added too much phosphate. Way too much by accident. Level went well above what you have now. I added 4 pillows of SeaChem PhosGuard and within 24 hours I was back at .02. It’s cheap, works fast and doesn’t have some of the ill effects of GFO.

As for routine Phosphate and Nitrate control I use Red Sea NO3-PO4-X. It works great to keep my NO3 levels under 1 ppm and PO4 under .02. It will zero out both and you have to monitor and adjust dosing but it’s a great product. Microbacter7 is similar, but I have not found it to work as well as the Red Sea product.

 

[brandon429]

you should never remove in increments, its totally dangerous. its bad for the system in fact, compared to instant surgical removal. (it upwells formerly stratified wastes, will get you invasions coming soon)

waste detritus has po4 and nitrate yet to be released.

 

[Willbiker]

you should never remove in increments, its totally dangerous. its bad for the system in fact, compared to instant surgical removal. (it upwells formerly stratified wastes, will get you invasions coming soon)

waste detritus has po4 and nitrate yet to be released.

Really? Everywhere I have read says go slow. What should I do? Take the rest of the sand out immediately, do a large water change?

Is po4 at 0.32 dangerously high?

 

[brandon429]

let me see pics pls of the system

 

[Willbiker]

There is about 2/3 the visible rock in the sump

 

[brandon429]

Beautiful!!

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

There's our quick removal thread. You're so close to being done I'd pull the rest since this didn't seem to be dangerous detritus levels

 

[Willbiker]

Beautiful!!

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

There's our quick removal thread. You're so close to being done I'd pull the rest since this didn't seem to be dangerous detritus levels

OK thanks for the help! What about the po4 level of 0.32? Is this dangerous? Shall I just let my gfo reduce it? I suppose I could dose microbacter7 daily to bring it down...

 

[Reef Jeff]

I would act on it to get it down. The level of 0.32 is high and can affect your corals. GFO will pull it down effectively. You can use the Microbacter7. It certainly won’t hurt anything.

 

[Willbiker]

Its now jumped up further overnight! A reading now of around 0.5.

Large water change? :S

 

[brandon429]

You can see we didn’t react to phosphate not once in the thread for six years running


water change is ok but anything further like reactive gfo risks dinos outbreak, your po4 test kit might not even be right. Partial removal stirs waste, it’s likely to balance out in time, and any other po4 kit is likely to show a totally different reading just like on all reef params.

 

[Willbiker]

You can see we didn’t react to phosphate not once in the thread for six years running


water change is ok but anything further like reactive gfo risks dinos outbreak, your po4 test kit might not even be right. Partial removal stirs waste, it’s likely to balance out in time, and any other po4 kit is likely to show a totally different reading just like on all reef params.

Oh ok. I shall keep an eye on it and will wait for my gfo to bring it down. Thanks for the advice

 

[Tamberav]

It doesn’t look like you have anything particularly sensitive to PO4 to me. I would just do a water change.

 

[Dan_P]

Hi all.

I have been slowly removing my sandbed over the last 3 weeks. I'm 3/4 of the way through removing it by siphoning it out with water changes.

My sand bed was 9 months old and looked super clean (except dinos), no obvious trapped detritus. My phosphate has jumped right up to around 0.3. Nitrates have also jumped up to 20ppm. Even after a 10% water change.

Could it be the sand bed removal which has caused this? I have 0 ammonia. Should I act on this or just wait for gfo to lower it? I have a bottle of microbacter7, should I dose?
Should I be worried? No obvious signs of coral stress.

Here are some of the possible explanations for the PO4 and NO3 increase.

Aragonite sand adsorbs PO4. When you removed it, the system has a smaller PO4 sink and it is accumulating in the water.

The jump in NO3 might be a jump in NO2. When you removed the sand, you removed nitrite oxidizing bacteria. Because these are slow growing bacteria, the system’s NO2 oxidizing capacity is lower and NO2 is accumulating.

If the sand bend had significant denitrifying capacity, the system’s capacity to remove NO3 has been diminished and NO3 are accumulating.

 

[Willbiker]

Here are some of the possible explanations for the PO4 and NO3 increase.

Aragonite sand adsorbs PO4. When you removed it, the system has a smaller PO4 sink and it is accumulating in the water.

The jump in NO3 might be a jump in NO2. When you removed the sand, you removed nitrite oxidizing bacteria. Because these are slow growing bacteria, the system’s NO2 oxidizing capacity is lower and NO2 is accumulating.

If the sand bend had significant denitrifying capacity, the system’s capacity to remove NO3 has been diminished and NO3 are accumulating.

Thanks for this useful explanation. How serious is my situation, will I cause any big problems?

What would you do in my situation? I'm rather concerned about it :S

 

[Dan_P]

Thanks for this useful explanation. How serious is my situation, will I cause any big problems?

What would you do in my situation? I'm rather concerned about it :S

Other folks have removed sand beds and will have first hand experience. I think you may have received some already, I would keep a close watch on the tank inhabitants and add no more for some time. In the mean time, use the search function on this forum to find posts on this subject.

 

[Dkmoo]

Are you still feeding them same thing as before? Removing the sand has upset the N to P consumption ratio of your tank. Often times, the things that live in your sand, like pods, bacteria, worms and other detrivor consume relatively higher ratio of P compared to N. Things on your rock, like algae and coral, consumes relatively lower ratio of P to N.

If you are feeding the same as before, then the input ratio of your N to P is still the same but yiur tank now consumes less P bc you are removing the sand.

 

[Willbiker]

Are you still feeding them same thing as before? Removing the sand has upset the N to P consumption ratio of your tank. Often times, the things that live in your sand, like pods, bacteria, worms and other detrivor consume relatively higher ratio of P compared to N. Things on your rock, like algae and coral, consumes relatively lower ratio of P to N.

If you are feeding the same as before, then the input ratio of your N to P is still the same but yiur tank now consumes less P bc you are removing the sand.

Oh I see! I was feeding 3 times per day but have dropped to 2. Now you have mentioned it I will drop to once. I also bought some phosphate remover from my LFS which I will dose daily to try and keep it under control until the bacteria catches up again. Thanks for the info...I will feed much less now

 

[brandon429]

buy a UV, for dinos. They are very helpful in the early stages be ready

 

[Willbiker]

buy a UV, for dinos. They are very helpful in the early stages be ready

Already got one! I have just about overcome dinos. My rock and sand was covered back in November and now its almost gone. I will keep the nutrients elevated and will hope it doesn't come back on the new sand im going to get. Thanks