Sky high phosphates and 0.75 nitrates

[Bpb]

My sps haven’t seemed to mind the LaCl at all

 

[Lasse]

There is different reports if LaCl will harm or not. It seems that it is from aquaria to aquaria. One way is to use a very fine mechanical filter (we use sandfilters) and dose very careful into the filter - backflush or change media after some hour. But take it careful. As some other said - rise the NO3 level can also be a good aproach to test.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Mrussell]

Is 0.27 phosphate really sky high? I’m curious to hear opinions on a good target number for phosphate. My tank has almost identical parameters and while I consider my phosphate to be on the high side it isn’t something I have really worried about.

 

[Lasse]

My tank run between 0.03 and 0.25

Sincerely Lasse

 

[dbjonesjr]

Dosing Lanthanum is a good solution. The best place to do it is slowly dripping it directly into the filter sock or your skimmer.

 

[Bpb]

I drip mine into my skimmer most the time. Sometimes into a sock, but the sock is a pain. 10 micron socks clog within about 24 hours and are a pain to wash.

 

[CoralWealth]

I am dosing the phosphate RX into my overflow box that goes directly into my filter socks in my sump, so I figured that is the best way. I am only dosing 10 drops a day (5 in the morning and 5 at night) this is for 600 gallons of water volume.

I am going to do this for the next week and see what happens. If this does not help a lot, I will try to raise the nitrate slowly along with continue the phosphate RX to see if that helps. If that does not do anything, then I will start using a small amount of GFO but that is the last option for me personally as like I said, I have had bad experience in the past

 

[hyprc]

I handle this problem by dosing sodium nitrate along with carbon dosing (ESV TE+, switched from NoPox a few months ago - both work well). Many solutions to the same problem, just a matter of finding what works best for you and that specific system

 

[CoralWealth]

Yeah I am going to do everything really slow and see how the system responds. Hopefully the phosphate RX will work good and that’s the solution.

 

[jda]

I don't think that the LC, or GFO even, are all that harmful, but lowering the P too fast usually creates problems.

I would not add nitrate. This will just fuel a bacteria burst to consume it again. Then, if you stop, then the extra bacteria that you grew will have do die and re-establish to equilibrium again. Just let it be.

I have only ever used LC to get phosphates out of used live rock. IME, it will do very well with larger numbers and then become ineffective when P gets lower - my guess is that there is just not enough of a concentration of P in the water anymore to effectively bind into the floculant. If you find that it does not work very well, then you might have to move to GFO.

In any case, your P around .3 is not the end of the world, so just keep reminding youself to go slow. The rock and sand have a good amount bound up, but it takes some time for them to unbind to the new water-column equilibrium. You do not want to drop the tank water too low too quickly and then have the P spike back up when the rock/sand release some. You want a slow and stead downward line, not spikes and valleys.

 

[CoralWealth]

I don't think that the LC, or GFO even, are all that harmful, but lowering the P too fast usually creates problems.

I would not add nitrate. This will just fuel a bacteria burst to consume it again. Then, if you stop, then the extra bacteria that you grew will have do die and re-establish to equilibrium again. Just let it be.

I have only ever used LC to get phosphates out of used live rock. IME, it will do very well with larger numbers and then become ineffective when P gets lower - my guess is that there is just not enough of a concentration of P in the water anymore to effectively bind into the floculant. If you find that it does not work very well, then you might have to move to GFO.

In any case, your P around .3 is not the end of the world, so just keep reminding youself to go slow. The rock and sand have a good amount bound up, but it takes some time for them to unbind to the new water-column equilibrium. You do not want to drop the tank water too low too quickly and then have the P spike back up when the rock/sand release some. You want a slow and stead downward line, not spikes and valleys.

Thank you! I am only doing 10 drops a day in my 600 gallon water volume, and only doing 5 drops in the morning and 5 drops at night. If I see the phosphate doesn’t drop from 0.3 by Wednesday, I will up it to around 15-20 drops a day and again test everyday and give it 3 days to see if it drops. So on and so on. That is my plan, hopefully that is a good plan. If not I would like suggestions and opinions from everyone.

 

[jda]

In case I am not around... if you do have to move to GFO, just get a 5 gallon bucket of it. The little containers are like throwing a baseball at a Boeing 747 when you have a 600 gallon water volume.

I my rock, the LC seemed to work well enough until we got to 25-35 ppb on the Hannah... then it was time for water change and GFO. It worked really well to get from --- to below 600 and then from 600 to 100 in no time.

Good luck. Go slow.

 

[KrisReef]

Nice discussion folks! I've had my phosphates elevated higher than I wanted recently. I've been using gfo in a canister to lower it but it does move slow (my siphon driven canister isn't the best for efficiency but I also don't want to bottom out as the precipitates are removed from the system. While the phosphates are being removed I've noticed my nitrates are creeping up. Do other folks who try to keep their phosphate low see nitrate levels rise at the same time?

 

[Lasse]

I am dosing the phosphate RX into my overflow box that goes directly into my filter socks in my sump, so I figured that is the best way. I am only dosing 10 drops a day (5 in the morning and 5 at night) this is for 600 gallons of water volume.

I am going to do this for the next week and see what happens. If this does not help a lot, I will try to raise the nitrate slowly along with continue the phosphate RX to see if that helps. If that does not do anything, then I will start using a small amount of GFO but that is the last option for me personally as like I said, I have had bad experience in the past

Thank you! I am only doing 10 drops a day in my 600 gallon water volume, and only doing 5 drops in the morning and 5 drops at night. If I see the phosphate doesn’t drop from 0.3 by Wednesday, I will up it to around 15-20 drops a day and again test everyday and give it 3 days to see if it drops. So on and so on. That is my plan, hopefully that is a good plan. If not I would like suggestions and opinions from everyone.

I think it is a good plan - I would clean/change the filtersocks every day a couple of hours after last addition.

I my rock, the LC seemed to work well enough until we got to 25-35 ppb on the Hannah... then it was time for water change and GFO. It worked really well to get from --- to below 600 and then from 600 to 100 in no time

@Sallstrom - did we have problem with low P concentrations and LC ?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[jda]

To be clear, I never found LC to have any issues or problems, only that it was not all that effective as concentrations of P got lower in the water. In the end, I was dosing 3x more than before and barely moving the needle... the filter sock would also not clog up as quickly.

 

[CoralWealth]

Would feeding frozen food add more phosphate or nitrates to the tank?

Especially the leftover food that isnt eaten.

 

[Sallstrom]

I think it is a good plan - I would clean/change the filtersocks every day a couple of hours after last addition.


@Sallstrom - did we have problem with low P concentrations and LC ?

Sincerely Lasse

No, we haven't had any problems with LaCl. But we've always dosed very diluted solutions and only if the PO4 has been above 0,12 ppm. What I have read and heard from people from other public aquariums is that the problems(fish dying) might occur when dosing too much at the time or dosing LaCl when the PO4 is low. So that's why I like to be very careful when using LaCl.
At PO4 levels under 0,12 ppm we use GFO instead.

As for the question in the first post, I would try GFO and potassium nitrate. Or perhaps some carbon source and potassium nitrate. And give it a couple of month.

 

[CoralWealth]

No, we haven't had any problems with LaCl. But we've always dosed very diluted solutions and only if the PO4 has been above 0,12 ppm. What I have read and heard from people from other public aquariums is that the problems(fish dying) might occur when dosing too much at the time or dosing LaCl when the PO4 is low. So that's why I like to be very careful when using LaCl.
At PO4 levels under 0,12 ppm we use GFO instead.

As for the question in the first post, I would try GFO and potassium nitrate. Or perhaps some carbon source and potassium nitrate. And give it a couple of month.

Thank you

 

[Lasse]

Would feeding frozen food add more phosphate or nitrates to the tank?

Especially the leftover food that isnt eaten.

Generally - if it is based on the same weight - then dry food contains much more nitrogen (N) compared to frozen natural feed. For phosphorus (P), it is usually a little more in the dry feed compared to the frozen natural feed.

However, frozen feed may contain additional added phosphate. Some readily soluble phosphate compounds are often used as preservatives.This can explain the high phosphate values sometimes reported from frozen feed

Sincerely Lasse

 

[CoralWealth]

Generally - if it is based on the same weight - then dry food contains much more nitrogen (N) compared to frozen natural feed. For phosphorus (P), it is usually a little more in the dry feed compared to the frozen natural feed.

However, frozen feed may contain additional added phosphate. Some readily soluble phosphate compounds are often used as preservatives.This can explain the high phosphate values sometimes reported from frozen feed

Sincerely Lasse

Thank you!

I will be testing phosphate at lunch today and see how much it has changed if at all over the past couple days. Hopefully it is down at least a little bit.