Phosphates are crazy high! Any tips or advice will be appreciated!!

[nano_reefer33]

Hi there everyone ! I’m looking for some help with my 8 gallon AIO nano tank. The tank is about 1 year old. And my main issue right is phosphates!

I currently stocked my filtration system with live rock, carbon, sponges and more recently chemi blue, and some phosphate reactor media. I’m experiencing extremely high phosphate levels and don’t want to add a phosphate reactor due to the size of the tank and limited space. But I realize I might have to now.

My phosphates are extremely high! They were at .72 after I added the chemi blue they’ve gone down to .44 in 2 1/2 weeks most recently there at .39 then the numbers started to climb back up and now I’ve added the phosphate reactor media

I’m worried about the live rock and sand leaching more phosphates as it started to go back up which is why I added the phosphate reactor media more recently to help bring it back down.
If anyone has any tips or tricks that might work please let me know

I’m currently dosing calcium and be closely watching alkalinity if needed I will dose. But as of right now alk is high so I should be okay
I’m feeding frozen mysis shrimp small amounts 2-3 times a day ( and no I’m not over feeding)
as well as phytoplankton once every 1-2 weeks

My tank perimeters:
Nitrates: 0
Kh: 11.6 ( I wanted them slightly higher because the phosphate reactor reduces alkalinity)
Phosphate: .39
Salinity: 1.025
Calcium : 400
I currently have my tank stocked with 2 nems a frogspawn coral
And 1 mushroom colony
1 mocha clownfish and a fire shrimp
Some turbo snails and hermit crabs

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Use microbactor7, I've been using it at a mistaken 8x doses and that's bottomed out the phosphate. I didn't know why as I thought it helped with bacteria but turned out it was bactor7 bottoming out both nitrate and phosphate. I stopped dosing it and wouldn't ya know, I now have both nitrates and phosphate!

 

[CoralB]

For a 8 gallon tank water changes and if thats not sufficient than phosphat-e from brightwell
Just be careful not to over dose . Read the directions .also over feeding can cause high phosphates and nutrients

 

[nano_reefer33]

Use microbactor7, I've been using it at a mistaken 8x doses and that's bottomed out the phosphate. I didn't know why as I thought it helped with bacteria but turned out it was bactor7 bottoming out both nitrate and phosphate. I stopped dosing it and wouldn't ya know, I now have both nitrates and phosphate!

Wow never thought of using that to control nitrates and phosphates. I will definitely be giving that product a try hopefully it will help. Thanks so much!

 

[nano_reefer33]

For a 8 gallon tank water changes and if thats not sufficient than phosphat-e from brightwell
Just be careful not to over dose . Read the directions .also over feeding can cause high phosphates and nutrients

I definitely was over feeding in the first 4 months of my tank but now I’ve cut back my feeding a lot. Also I do small water changes maybe 25% sometimes less or more depending on parameters at least twice a week since I don’t have a skimmer or any large filtration because of the limited space I have with the aio

Hi there everyone ! I’m looking for some help with my 8 gallon AIO nano tank. The tank is about 1 year old. And my main issue right is phosphates!

I currently stocked my filtration system with live rock, carbon, sponges and more recently chemi blue, and some phosphate reactor media. I’m experiencing extremely high phosphate levels and don’t want to add a phosphate reactor due to the size of the tank and limited space. But I realize I might have to now.

My phosphates are extremely high! They were at .72 after I added the chemi blue they’ve gone down to .44 in 2 1/2 weeks most recently there at .39 then the numbers started to climb back up and now I’ve added the phosphate reactor media

I’m worried about the live rock and sand leaching more phosphates as it started to go back up which is why I added the phosphate reactor media more recently to help bring it back down.
If anyone has any tips or tricks that might work please let me know

I’m currently dosing calcium and be closely watching alkalinity if needed I will dose. But as of right now alk is high so I should be okay
I’m feeding frozen mysis shrimp small amounts 2-3 times a day ( and no I’m not over feeding)
as well as phytoplankton once every 1-2 weeks

My tank perimeters:
Nitrates: 0
Kh: 11.6 ( I wanted them slightly higher because the phosphate reactor reduces alkalinity)
Phosphate: .39
Salinity: 1.025
Calcium : 400
I currently have my tank stocked with 2 nems a frogspawn coral
And 1 mushroom colony
1 mocha clownfish and a fire shrimp
Some turbo snails and hermit crabs

also I am doing consistent small water changes twice a week mostly 25% sometimes less or more depending on tank parameters

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Wow never thought of using that to control nitrates and phosphates. I will definitely be giving that product a try hopefully it will help. Thanks so much!

Yeah thank my wife for that one, the product was kinda vague on dosing tbh. My wife looked at our new bottle yesterday and said... Do you know we've been dosing way way to much? I'm like no, It said to add 1 cap per 25 g and that's what we did. Well It worked for hammering down any nitrates or phosphates we tried to keep in the tank.. All it did was zero both out and got a dino outbreak :/

User error on my behalf, but hey I now know how much to dose if nutrients get out of hand lol.

2 days of not dosing Bactor7 and 2 days we've been able to hold N & P in the system.

 

[LadAShark]

A) go slow, aside from some of the rapidly lethal things, slow fixes are safer than rapid ones, even for problems like phosphate, it's a shock going up and another shock going down.
B) carbon dosing, if you're nitrogen limited or eventually reach such a state, nitrate/ammonia dosing as well
C) there are people who've successfully kept outstanding reefs at phosphate levels as high as 2.0, though they had great husbandry as well
D) frozen seafoods, especially from the grocery store, use very high levels of sodium triphosphate as a preservative, which is harmless to us and not required by the FDA to be listed as an ingredient. Rinse/soak those before feeding

 

[Nano_Man]

Hi there everyone ! I’m looking for some help with my 8 gallon AIO nano tank. The tank is about 1 year old. And my main issue right is phosphates!

I currently stocked my filtration system with live rock, carbon, sponges and more recently chemi blue, and some phosphate reactor media. I’m experiencing extremely high phosphate levels and don’t want to add a phosphate reactor due to the size of the tank and limited space. But I realize I might have to now.

My phosphates are extremely high! They were at .72 after I added the chemi blue they’ve gone down to .44 in 2 1/2 weeks most recently there at .39 then the numbers started to climb back up and now I’ve added the phosphate reactor media

I’m worried about the live rock and sand leaching more phosphates as it started to go back up which is why I added the phosphate reactor media more recently to help bring it back down.
If anyone has any tips or tricks that might work please let me know

I’m currently dosing calcium and be closely watching alkalinity if needed I will dose. But as of right now alk is high so I should be okay
I’m feeding frozen mysis shrimp small amounts 2-3 times a day ( and no I’m not over feeding)
as well as phytoplankton once every 1-2 weeks

My tank perimeters:
Nitrates: 0
Kh: 11.6 ( I wanted them slightly higher because the phosphate reactor reduces alkalinity)
Phosphate: .39
Salinity: 1.025
Calcium : 400
I currently have my tank stocked with 2 nems a frogspawn coral
And 1 mushroom colony
1 mocha clownfish and a fire shrimp
Some turbo snails and hermit crabs

Yep what you find with removing phosphate you get it to a level you want then test a couple of days later and it is back we’re you started it leaching out your rock and sand . You do eventually get it stable but it’s not over night. I use L chloride u have to be very careful my self have had no fish corals or anemone problems but if you don’t get the dosing right you can bottom out in one dose slowly slowly is the name of the game . Randy has a recipe for it on dosing I then halved my dose to see how affective that was and slowly ramped up from there . A lot of people don’t trust it but it worked for me and no I’ll effect’s on fish . This is only my experience with high phosphate removal . My tank before I checked it was sitting at 2 now 0.1

 

[Garf]

Hi there everyone ! I’m looking for some help with my 8 gallon AIO nano tank. The tank is about 1 year old. And my main issue right is phosphates!

I currently stocked my filtration system with live rock, carbon, sponges and more recently chemi blue, and some phosphate reactor media. I’m experiencing extremely high phosphate levels and don’t want to add a phosphate reactor due to the size of the tank and limited space. But I realize I might have to now.

My phosphates are extremely high! They were at .72 after I added the chemi blue they’ve gone down to .44 in 2 1/2 weeks most recently there at .39 then the numbers started to climb back up and now I’ve added the phosphate reactor media

I’m worried about the live rock and sand leaching more phosphates as it started to go back up which is why I added the phosphate reactor media more recently to help bring it back down.
If anyone has any tips or tricks that might work please let me know

I’m currently dosing calcium and be closely watching alkalinity if needed I will dose. But as of right now alk is high so I should be okay
I’m feeding frozen mysis shrimp small amounts 2-3 times a day ( and no I’m not over feeding)
as well as phytoplankton once every 1-2 weeks

My tank perimeters:
Nitrates: 0
Kh: 11.6 ( I wanted them slightly higher because the phosphate reactor reduces alkalinity)
Phosphate: .39
Salinity: 1.025
Calcium : 400
I currently have my tank stocked with 2 nems a frogspawn coral
And 1 mushroom colony
1 mocha clownfish and a fire shrimp
Some turbo snails and hermit crabs

For what it’s worth I spent many years ignoring phosphate. Then thought it was just about time to tackle them with an algae scrubber which did the trick after 18months or so. I saw absolutely no difference in the tank however. Similar story with my most recent tank but didn’t use an algae scrubber, still no difference that I could tell. I’ve always had a good herbivore crew to do the housework for me.

 

[Outlaw Corals]

That’s not high at all, why does everyone freak out over phosphates?

 

[Mickey]

That’s not high at all, why does everyone freak out over phosphates?

I totally agree. My phosphate has been well over 1.5 (and YES, that is 1.5 and decimal point is not in the wrong place!) for years and tank is just fine. No visible algae growth at all. Well, except for diatoms which I encourage with silica additions as I battled dinos a couple years ago so I maintain some silica in the tank now and that has helped. Even with the dino explosion my nitrates and phosphates were high.

 

[gregdepot]

It depends on how sensitive your frog spawn is, I don’t think the other things in the tank will have a problem. The .03-.08 is for the most sensitive corals etc, I have decent luck around .30 and below, above .60 my corals brown out or start dying etc. Also flow and maybe lighting can have an impact etc.

 

[schooncw]

I totally agree. My phosphate has been well over 1.5 (and YES, that is 1.5 and decimal point is not in the wrong place!) for years and tank is just fine. No visible algae growth at all. Well, except for diatoms which I encourage with silica additions as I battled dinos a couple years ago so I maintain some silica in the tank now and that has helped. Even with the dino explosion my nitrates and phosphates were high.

When you say your tank is "fine".....what corals do you keep?

 

[nano_reefer33]

It depends on how sensitive your frog spawn is, I don’t think the other things in the tank will have a problem. The .03-.08 is for the most sensitive corals etc, I have decent luck around .30 and below, above .60 my corals brown out or start dying etc. Also flow and maybe lighting can have an impact etc.

My frogspawn is actually doing exceptionally well considering my high phosphate levels and so are my mushroom corals and they both are very happy it's more so my BTA anenome that never looks happy and hardly opens up any more as well as brown algae constantly growing on my glass and some algae on my live rock

 

[nano_reefer33]

That’s not high at all, why does everyone freak out over phosphates

Yeah thank my wife for that one, the product was kinda vague on dosing tbh. My wife looked at our new bottle yesterday and said... Do you know we've been dosing way way to much? I'm like no, It said to add 1 cap per 25 g and that's what we did. Well It worked for hammering down any nitrates or phosphates we tried to keep in the tank.. All it did was zero both out and got a dino outbreak :/

User error on my behalf, but hey I now know how much to dose if nutrients get out of hand lol.

2 days of not dosing Bactor7 and 2 days we've been able to hold N & P in the system.

I feel like most dosing measurements are never specific enough I always find myself over dosing or underdosing to try to play it safe

Yep what you find with removing phosphate you get it to a level you want then test a couple of days later and it is back we’re you started it leaching out your rock and sand . You do eventually get it stable but it’s not over night. I use L chloride u have to be very careful my self have had no fish corals or anemone problems but if you don’t get the dosing right you can bottom out in one dose slowly slowly is the name of the game . Randy has a recipe for it on dosing I then halved my dose to see how affective that was and slowly ramped up from there . A lot of people don’t trust it but it worked for me and no I’ll effect’s on fish . This is only my experience with high phosphate removal . My tank before I checked it was sitting at 2 now 0.1

Yea definitely frustrating seeing those numbers climb back up. Currently there working there way back down after some more water changes and adding some phosphate remover media just definitely doing it that way takes some patience I’m probably not going to start seeing those low numbers any time soon but it’s my safest bet other than installing a phosphate reactor. Which I’m hoping I won’t need to do that.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Got tired of all the problems from that bactor7 od and that bio actif salt mix messing around with numbers so reboot 2.0 is on the go. Just wish my RODI would make water faster, they never make water fast enough lol but it's coming along nicely. At least this reboot will be a -dont listen to the interweb-

I actually spoke to tech at algae barn and asked for some advice and she said... Boy you got alot going on! I'm like yup so doing a strip clean but the sand is mixed in the garden and new special grade added.

 

[Nano_Man]

I feel like most dosing measurements are never specific enough I always find myself over dosing or underdosing to try to play it safe

Yea definitely frustrating seeing those numbers climb back up. Currently there working there way back down after some more water changes and adding some phosphate remover media just definitely doing it that way takes some patience I’m probably not going to start seeing those low numbers any time soon but it’s my safest bet other than installing a phosphate reactor. Which I’m hoping I won’t need to do that.

Water changes never work for me what it did was lowered nitrate but phosphate stayed stubbornly high due to leaching if you are using phosphate remover it will slowly remove over time . L chloride bang and your numbers are down but rise again with the rock and sand leaching and as we all know we shouldn’t be changing things fast . Slow slow as we go