PO4 Just jumped SUPER high

[Bells>Waimea]

Phos just jumped from .12 to .55 in 2 weeks and not sure why.

2 weeks ago it was .12 and pretty steady. Went on vacation for 6 days and just got back and tested everything and it is super high. Tested 3 times with the hanna ULR. (.54, .54, .56)

Parameters:
Alk - 8.9
Cal - 480
Mag- Will test before water change this weekend.
NO3- 4-5
PO4- .55

I have a lil 20 gal. Going great 4.5 months in. Coralline growing all over. Corals doing well and growing. Diatoms came and went.

Started with dry rock.(real reef rock, iirc) Live sand. Fishless cycle. Did not cycle rock. Running floss in back chambers, tiny fuge with cheato growing nicely and live rock rubble, marine pure balls, and a little UV as well. Been hand dosing for a bit, but just got a doser and am keeping ALK and CAL stable.

I feed mostly frozen and drain out the water before I feed. Sometime I use flake, and I use reef roids about every 1 - 1.5 weeks. I have been dosing a small amount of microbactor7 for a couple weeks, but since the diatoms are gone I stopped. Also reef nutrition phyto, about 10 drops every few days at night before bed. I get water from a place nearby. (.001 TDS)

N03 has been low at around 2-5ppm, and PO4 has ranged from .05 to about .12, but was steady at .12 for a few weeks.

Tank looks super clean with minimal algae growing in the display, I pulled out the little fuge today to see what was going on and the chaeto has grown a lot, noticed some pineapple sponges on the LR rubble and scraped some hair algea off the little basket. (very small amount was growing).

All coral including SPS and acros are doing well and growing, besides one tabling acro that is kinda browned out. I lost a 2 zoa polyps went I went on vacation. First coral loss.

Water change this weekend, and am considering putting in some chemi pure elite (with GFO) in one of the back chambers. Generally don't like to run carbon or GFO if I don't have to though.

I figured that since I left for 6 days, ran the fuge on a reverse cycle and didn't feed anything my PO4 would have dropped, but it shot up.

Any ideas why? Would dry rock leach 4.5 months in?

Also wouldn't I be having more issues with PO4 being so high?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Mix up a batch of new saltwater from a proven 0 TDS RODI source and test the PO4 of that water. PO4 test should read zero or close to it. If it is, then you truly have high PO4. If not, then your test equipment or procedure is flawed. This is just to figure out if your test equipment is giving accurate readings before proceeding to fixing a possible PO4 problem.

 

[Bells>Waimea]

Mix up a batch of new saltwater from a proven 0 TDS RODI source and test the PO4 of that water. PO4 test should read zero or close to it. If it is, then you truly have high PO4. If not, then your test equipment or procedure is flawed. This is just to figure out if your test equipment is giving accurate readings before proceeding to fixing a possible PO4 problem.

Does the Hanna checker work with freshwater?

 

[Bells>Waimea]

Does the Hanna checker work with freshwater?

Ahh.. you said mix up a new batch. Got it.

 

[Larry L]

Also wouldn't I be having more issues with PO4 being so high?

Not necessarily, lots of people run systems with phosphates that high. If you don't see obvious problems, don't do anything to try to quickly bring them down - that will likely cause more harm than good. If your regular maintenance and feeding routine normally keep things where you want them, then stick with that and maybe use a few drops of one of the lanthanum chloride based phosphate removers to slowly bring things back in line.

 

[Bells>Waimea]

If the PO4 really did jump up like that, what would the possible reasons be? Any theories?

Would dry rock take 4.5 months to start leaching? And if so, would it release that much that quick?