Phosphates?
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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Not all sps keepers do.
shakacuz
hang loose, cuz
algae scrubber, roller mat, skimmer, refugium, lots of biomedia(live rock, and the like), good amount of clean up crew to keep algae in the DT at minimum so it doesn't consume your nutrients
.31 at the moment. I was keeping it down to below .1 but i let them bottom bk out to 0 then I got dinos and phosphates started rising. My nitrates are 7.0. I was using nopox before and everything was good phosphates always below .1.
X-37B
Fight The Good Fight
Phosgaurd in a reactor keeps my system around <.1. Currently today its .129. I just replenished it and it will go to .05 before it starts to rise. When it gets to .15 I change it.
sgrosenb
Active Member
This is all just personal experience, but I've been battling / chasing PO4 for 6 years in my tank and I think it's the main thing that is holding me back from really exceptional success with SPS. I've read countless threads on here about where to try and keep it, and what works for some obviously does not work for all. I won't opine on whether 0.03 is the "right" number, but in my experience, in order to get it down that far, you have to pull all of the PO4 out of your rock first, or do it over a long, long time (possibly years) to get it out. I recently purchased the Trident NP, and have been measuring PO4 twice per day (I'm really impressed with the Trident, BTW - always spot-on with my Hanna ULR). While measuring PO4 twice daily, I tried using a variable speed pump to feed a GFO reactor to try and sloowwwwlllyyy bring down PO4 from ~0.35. I thought this method might give me a really good at a controlled, slow move down. I succeeded in bringing down PO4 to 0.18 or so over a few month period since I got the NP, but then I noticed my birdsnest starting to die. IME birdsnest like higher PO4, so that was a red flag. Then I lost a nice big colony of Tyree Red Dragon, which was painful. Then my JF Fox Flame colony started to get burnt tips. I did not change any other parameters or dosing, so I feel as though it was highly likely the GFO. But what I'm surprised at is the even at 0.18 or so, and moving down very slowly, my tank still had stress. I know many folks who use GFO with little or no issue, so it is perplexing to me. I since let my PO4 rise back up to ~0.35 and do not have any stress, but I do wish my growth was better.
I'm highly confident, in my system specifically, that I have a large amount of PO4 in my rocks. Any time I do a 20% WC, my PO4 drops accordingly, and then rises up fairly quickly back to it's equilibrium. I wish I had a good way to pull the PO4 out of my rocks completely; I would love to be one of those that actually dose PO4!
Here's an example of a WC this past week and PO4, the bump down is where the WC was:
I'm highly confident, in my system specifically, that I have a large amount of PO4 in my rocks. Any time I do a 20% WC, my PO4 drops accordingly, and then rises up fairly quickly back to it's equilibrium. I wish I had a good way to pull the PO4 out of my rocks completely; I would love to be one of those that actually dose PO4!
Here's an example of a WC this past week and PO4, the bump down is where the WC was:
Randy Holmes-Farley
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One can have a great SPS tank at those levels:
Rich Ross - Home Tank - guess the phosphate
This tank was built before r2r, here is a link to some links about the build. http://packedhead.net/home-reef/ Current test results: 03-17-2017 Ammonia (NH3-4) Good 0 0.000 - 0.050 mg/L 03-17-2017 Nitrite (NO2) Good 0.006 0.000 - 0.100 mg/L 03-17-2017 Phosphate...
www.reef2reef.com
03-17-2017 Phosphate (PO4) High 1.77 ppm
vetteguy53081
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mine average .04 - .05 but varies between water changes
UMALUM
Well-Known Member
Have you tried running higher levels of supplements and par to bring it all together?This is all just personal experience, but I've been battling / chasing PO4 for 6 years in my tank and I think it's the main thing that is holding me back from really exceptional success with SPS. I've read countless threads on here about where to try and keep it, and what works for some obviously does not work for all. I won't opine on whether 0.03 is the "right" number, but in my experience, in order to get it down that far, you have to pull all of the PO4 out of your rock first, or do it over a long, long time (possibly years) to get it out. I recently purchased the Trident NP, and have been measuring PO4 twice per day (I'm really impressed with the Trident, BTW - always spot-on with my Hanna ULR). While measuring PO4 twice daily, I tried using a variable speed pump to feed a GFO reactor to try and sloowwwwlllyyy bring down PO4 from ~0.35. I thought this method might give me a really good at a controlled, slow move down. I succeeded in bringing down PO4 to 0.18 or so over a few month period since I got the NP, but then I noticed my birdsnest starting to die. IME birdsnest like higher PO4, so that was a red flag. Then I lost a nice big colony of Tyree Red Dragon, which was painful. Then my JF Fox Flame colony started to get burnt tips. I did not change any other parameters or dosing, so I feel as though it was highly likely the GFO. But what I'm surprised at is the even at 0.18 or so, and moving down very slowly, my tank still had stress. I know many folks who use GFO with little or no issue, so it is perplexing to me. I since let my PO4 rise back up to ~0.35 and do not have any stress, but I do wish my growth was better.
I'm highly confident, in my system specifically, that I have a large amount of PO4 in my rocks. Any time I do a 20% WC, my PO4 drops accordingly, and then rises up fairly quickly back to it's equilibrium. I wish I had a good way to pull the PO4 out of my rocks completely; I would love to be one of those that actually dose PO4!
Here's an example of a WC this past week and PO4, the bump down is where the WC was:
This is my stick tank PO4. 65g total volume. Reefmat, no fuge, no skimmer, 2g WC every couple of weeks to remove detritus that settles in one corner. 4 fish fed 3-4 times a day mostly frozen with some pellets. I dose a very small amount of bacto balance (0.15ml) daily along with MB7 and zeobac bi weekly. I can't say the MB7 and zeobac have an effect but I'm going to continue untill the bottles are empty and then decide whether to continue or not.
sgrosenb
Active Member
@UMALUM thanks for the note. I haven't toyed around with my par in a while, but I'm always willing to give small, controlled changes a shot at better growth (and color, but I feel like my color is decent. I have trouble pulling out the pink in a lot of corals). Can you specify what you mean but higher levels of supplements?
