Phosphorus

[Rmckoy]

I have been testing every other day .
this really isn’t making sense at all ....

Alk is steady at 7.5 dkh and only dosing 12ml per day to maintain it .

cal is 425 and stable
Mag is 1300
Nitrates are 5 ppm but were at 10ppm a week ago .

phosphorus is all over the place .
depending when and how often I test .
Today tested at 20ppb

I have rowaphos running in a reactor , along with carbon in a second reactor .

my question ... if I have old rocks that have been used for years . Is it possible that I’m fighting a losing battle ?

where else do phosphates come from ?

 

[Daniel92481]

If you’re at 20ppb phosphorus, doesn’t that equate to ~0.06? Not bad!

How do your corals look?

What kinds of food are you feeding?

 

[Rmckoy]

If you’re at 20ppb phosphorus, doesn’t that equate to ~0.06? Not bad!

How do your corals look?

What kinds of food are you feeding?

Yes .
.06 which isn’t bad ... but a week ago it was 56ppb

before that it was 30ppb

why they’re up and down really doesn’t make sense .

 

[Rmckoy]

Corals .....
a few weeks ago I’m still not sure what happened but lost a bunch of sps .
Some things including the massive acro colony just started to rtn .

 

[Daniel92481]

Yes .
.06 which isn’t bad ... but a week ago it was 56ppb

before that it was 30ppb

why they’re up and down really doesn’t make sense .

Be careful with the phosphate reducing media, it works really well! How much do you feed? A lot of times, testing error is usually the cause. I would test a fresh batch of saltwater as well as your tank water 2x to make sure you get a somewhat accurate reading.

 

[Rmckoy]

Be careful with the phosphate reducing media, it works really well! How much do you feed? A lot of times, testing error is usually the cause. I would test a fresh batch of saltwater as well as your tank water 2x to make sure you get a somewhat accurate reading.

I was having issues with rodi water
Tested it to be .03 phosphate before changing di resin and all cartridges .
Everything is zero coming from the rodi system.

I feed 2-3 times per week
Usually 1 sheet purple seaweed , and a pinch of pellets .
In the 230 gal stock list

1 yellow tang
1) yellow belly blue tang
1) orange shoulder
1 sailfin tang
1) mata tang
1 foxface
2 oc clownfish
2 springeri damsels
1 Mel wrasse
1 yellow flanked fairy wrasse
1 green spotted mandarin
1 lawnmower blenny
1 flame hawk
1 yellow wrasse

 

[mdb_talon]

Using the low range kit it seems like big jumps are happening, but really in ppb that just seems like variability of testing noise and/or real fluctuations based off feeding/consumption/etc to me.

I may be way off, but mine bounce up and down between about .04 and .12. Whether they are really changing or I have not executed the test perfectly I dont know, but I would not worry about it.

 

[Rmckoy]

Using the low range kit it seems like big jumps are happening, but really in ppb that just seems like variability of testing noise and/or real fluctuations based off feeding/consumption/etc to me.

I may be way off, but mine bounce up and down between about .04 and .12. Whether they are really changing or I have not executed the test perfectly I dont know, but I would not worry about it.

Thank you ...

That just messes up what I was thinking even more . Ha ha .

previous posts about sps dying and the majority of the comments implied it was high phosphates which were no higher than they are now .
Stability is key ,
But this is the only parameter that’s not stable

 

[mdb_talon]

osts about sps dying and the majority of the comments implied it was high phosphates which were no higher than they are now .
Stability is key ,
But this is the only parameter that’s not stable

I am a huge proponent of stability I just think at that level it going to be really hard to get it stable at the ppb level. I am sure someone can do it lol, but like I said mine varies a "lot" (at that scale) and does not seem to be causing issues. Heck sometimes when I have a reading way off(ie .2 on phosphate) I will test again and it will be what I expect so it must have been too little water or did not get all the regeant, fingerprint on glass, or something. Now I just count that as noise though cause retesting until you get the parameter you expect is not good either lol. I just look at trends over multiple tests. If I see it trending too low or too high I start testing daily and then only address if that trend continues.