Quarantine tank! High phosphate

leen.tu · Mar 26, 2022

Hii, i had a quarantine tank set up in the garage so no sun light at all and barely any light one day it becMe so foggy and so green so i decided to do a full water change which i always do with no problems one day after ally fish are dead! When i tested the phosphate was too high at 2 which is so confusing because its new water here are the numbers
Temp 80
Salinity 1.019
Copper power for copper 2.4
Alkalinity 8.9
PH 7
Phosphate 2.0
Calcium 340
Magnesium 908
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 1

Please help me so this never happens again

leen.tu · Mar 26, 2022

Thank god my lazy husband didn't throw out the old water this is the results for it and i doubt its right!!!

WisReef · Mar 26, 2022

Just to clarify, are these the results of your freshly made SW or just water in you quarantine tank?

leen.tu · Mar 26, 2022

The one with phosphate of 2.0 its freshly made water not mixed with used old water

The one with 5 is the old one that i replaced

O think there is something in the garage that is causing these numbers

WisReef · Mar 26, 2022

I'd try testing you tap water to see what your phosphate levels are there. Are you mixing it in a brute container?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 26, 2022

How are you making the water and what tests is being used for phosphate? 5 ppm? 5 ppb?

leen.tu · Mar 26, 2022

WisReef said:
I'd try testing you tap water to see what your phosphate levels are there. Are you mixing it in a brute container?

Yes and i have been mixing for a while i have never had an issue but i can test my ro water for sure

leen.tu · Mar 26, 2022

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
How are you making the water and what tests is being used for phosphate? 5 ppm? 5 ppb?

I make my own i use red sea coral pro salt and this is picture of the test for the main tank

MotoJJ · Mar 26, 2022

What kind of tester is that? Are you confident in the results?

leen.tu · Mar 26, 2022

MotoJJ said:
What kind of tester is that? Are you confident in the results?

I do trust it its called spin touch

threebuoys · Mar 27, 2022

Are you quarantining coral? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the 2.0 - 5.0 phosphate range is anything you really need to focus on in a fish only quarantine tank. If it is, I've been making a mistake for years because I only track ammonia.

MotoJJ · Mar 27, 2022

leen.tu said:
I do trust it its called spin touch

Thanks

leen.tu · Mar 30, 2022

threebuoys said:
Are you quarantining coral? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the 2.0 - 5.0 phosphate range is anything you really need to focus on in a fish only quarantine tank. If it is, I've been making a mistake for years because I only track ammonia.

No corals in this tank its only copper power i had ich breakout
And i have no idea what killed all the fish in the tank they lived there for a month and they looked perfectly fine

threebuoys · Mar 30, 2022

leen.tu said:
No corals in this tank its only copper power i had ich breakout
And i have no idea what killed all the fish in the tank they lived there for a month and they looked perfectly fine

Is there a possibility that your RO water wasn't pure and contained chlorine?

Seems it has to be a water quality problem of some type if the ich was successfully removed by the copper treatment and the fish had been eating for the time they were in QT. Did you recheck all of the water parameters after the deaths just to insure something didn't get overdosed accidentally?