Urgent help High phosphates

[ReefRusty]

Water changes due virtually nothing to lower phosphate levels. They work on nitrates but not phosphate. Just add some phosguard or chemipure and walk it down slowly so you don't stress your corals or fish.

Even if it's 300L in a 400L tank?

 

[ReefRusty]

So managed around a 300L water change out of 420L And tested phosphates and tested 0.21 so a good drop from 0.51 hope now the GFO does the rest slowly at least now it's more achievable in reducing slowing.

 

[minus9]

May I ask why you’re trying to drop PO4 this fast? What’s the urgency? It took a long time for the PO4 to build up and it should take a while to reduce. This is a sure fire way of causing some major issues, especially doing that large of a water change. Your rock is going through a roller coaster of saturation and leaching, which should’ve been done in your curing process. Soaking it in RO does nothing to help in the long term, you need to cure it in saltwater and slowly pull the PO4 out, this takes time. The same thing happens with dry rock, it soaks in PO4, then it starts to release over time after saturation. Water changes don’t do enough for nutrient export, but employing more efficient natural methods of nutrient reduction is always best and less stressful on the biology of your tank. Bacteria, algae beds, skimming, etc….. are your best bet to reduce nutrients. Use a little gfo or similar to help out, but use half the amount and use natural methods for reduction. Whatever you do, just go slow.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Even if it's 300L in a 400L tank?

Correct.

Even a 100% change often will not do enough for it. The reason is that there can be a huge reservoir of phosphate attached to rock and sand surfaces, and any effort to lower it requires also stripping off much of that phosphate.

Immediately after a 100% change, the values may read low, then over hours to days, it rises back toward where it was as this phosphate is released. How high it gets again depends on how much exposed rock and sand surfaces you have.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

Even if it's 300L in a 400L tank?

Proof is in the fact that they jump right back up, you have phosphates bound in likely both your sand and rocks.
I would suggest pulling both and clean up your rock. There is a process called cooking your rocks (its not with a stove) its dilution over time in fresh seawater , repeatedly it could take months to fix, its not a quick fix like a GFO but will actually fix the problem.

Your never gonna cure your problem in this tank with any amount of waterchanges unless you get the bound phosphates out.

 

[ApoIsland]

For removing bound phosphate from rocks I have also read about reefers using lanthanum chloride which is found in a product called Seaklear usually sold at pool supply stores. They would remove a good portion of rocks from the system and place in a separate heated and circulated saltwater bin then dose a certain amount of Seaklear. I think it was 5x the recommended dosage for phosphate removal or something like that. You would need to do some research. Apparently the beneficial bacterial populations on the rock are not harmed with this method.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

So managed around a 300L water change out of 420L And tested phosphates and tested 0.21 so a good drop from 0.51 hope now the GFO does the rest slowly at least now it's more achievable in reducing slowing.

it won't. Your test kit is not a very good indicator for one its only registering unbound phosphates and your system is bound up with phosphates. Hobby grade test kits for Phosphates are not the best way to test for it

 

[ReefRusty]

Correct.

Even a 100% change often will not do enough for it. The reason is that there can be a huge reservoir of phosphate attached to rock and sand surfaces, and any effort to lower it requires also stripping off much of that phosphate.

Immediately after a 100% change, the values may read low, then over hours to days, it rises back toward where it was as this phosphate is released. How high it gets again depends on how much exposed rock and sand surfaces you have.

But by adding GFO it was a noticeable drop in levels and it it continues to drop would that not mean it's not binded to the e rock and sand. ?

 

[ReefRusty]

May I ask why you’re trying to drop PO4 this fast? What’s the urgency? It took a long time for the PO4 to build up and it should take a while to reduce. This is a sure fire way of causing some major issues, especially doing that large of a water change. Your rock is going through a roller coaster of saturation and leaching, which should’ve been done in your curing process. Soaking it in RO does nothing to help in the long term, you need to cure it in saltwater and slowly pull the PO4 out, this takes time. The same thing happens with dry rock, it soaks in PO4, then it starts to release over time after saturation. Water changes don’t do enough for nutrient export, but employing more efficient natural methods of nutrient reduction is always best and less stressful on the biology of your tank. Bacteria, algae beds, skimming, etc….. are your best bet to reduce nutrients. Use a little gfo or similar to help out, but use half the amount and use natural methods for reduction. Whatever you do, just go slow.

It's a new tank 0 phosphate during cycle process, it's only after all the live stock and fish were transferred was the a huge increase in phosphate.

The corals were in my other tank in 0.09 phosphate. Using half the recommended gfo

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

You said the rocks were in a tank 2 years, then they were dry for 10 months right?
So throw your phosphate test kit in the trash and listen to people who see the chemistry thats happening here. You keep thinking that any of those tests give you an accurate number... they do not, it could read .99 your gfo and water change brings it back down to .21 but give it a couple days and that numbers climbing.. Cuz your rocks are saturated, your big water changes help but its like emptying a beach with a small shovel.

you need to get the rocks clean, either cooking them or as someone suggested lanthium chloride or some other means of extracting the phosphates from your rocks.

 

[ReefRusty]

And if taking out all rocks and essentially cooking them and or removing them in general other than dosing phosphate remover what other option there? Because removing rocks at this time is definitely not an option.

 

[TexanCanuck]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I would consider employing carbon dosing to help out.

Specifically, carbon dosing can increase the population of bacteria that can bind the phosphate from the water column. In turn, these bacteria are more readily absorbed by your corals.

In particular, perhaps you might try Tropic Marin's Elimi-NP which is made for this exact purpose:

Elimi-NP | Produktinformationen

www.tropic-marin-smartinfo.com

For an explanation of how this works, check out this video:


While all of the video is quite interesting, the relevant portion on how carbon dosing lowers phosphate starts at 30:50

 

[damsels are not mean]

Corals were looking great over the past few days but some appear to be more sensitive and struggling.

How long have they been in and what sort of trend have you observed in the phosphate over that time? What kinds of corals are stuggling and where are they?

 

[ReefRusty]

How long have they been in and what sort of trend have you observed in the phosphate over that time? What kinds of corals are stuggling and where are they?

Tank is only into its 4th week old. 15 day cycle and all coral and fish transferred across from my 70.2 tank.

Mainly a couple of my acans and a Tracey. Everything weeks appeared to be happy.

My ironman and rainbow acan was struggling but looks like it's fluffy again.

 

[Dan_P]

I have recently started my new waterbox 130.4 everything was transferred from my 70.2 gal tank over a few days. Corals and fish.

Everything was in check and when I checked my Phosphates using hanna phosphorus checker and it first read 200ppb which is roughly 0.6 Phosphates.

Completed a 150L water change and tested a few hours later and was at 190ppb

I tested again today and same again 190ppb. I have started using Rowaphos in a media bag in a medium flow area as recommended.

Corals were looking great over the past few days but some appear to be more sensitive and struggling.

Anything more I can do or rode it out while the rowaphos does its thing?

Additional water changes?

Sand and rock were dry and rinsed heavily with RODI water before tank went through its cycling. Again Phosphates were 0.01during this period.

What was the PO4 in the old system, just before the transfer?

 

[ReefRusty]

What was the PO4 in the old system, just before the transfer?

0.09 and everything was thriving, had a little bit of algae issue but nothing major. Today's reading was 0.240

 

[Dan_P]

0.09 and everything was thriving, had a little bit of algae issue but nothing major. Today's reading was 0.240

OK thanks.

Here are some ideas.

Stop the water changes, continue the GFO to slowly (week or two) bring down the PO4. A PO4 reading moving from 0.09 ppm to 0.24 ppm might not be an emergency, just something to manage.

 

[dwest]

Agree with many of the posts. Large WC won’t help. Use the GFO and very slowly reduce phosphates. I would be happy with a very slow drop to the 0.1-0.2 range.

 

[ReefRusty]

Yeah ok. It was originally at .59 though. And now at 0.2ish is be happy to keep around that or slowly lower. Just think removing rocks and cooking them for a few months is just not an option for me. So can rule out out. Understand it's definitely a way to fix the underlying issue if in fact it is that but I'll try alternatives for now as the tank is only 4 weeks only. Believe the mass bioload in one bit is a huge factor

 

[minus9]

I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my previous post or not, but using PNS Probio will help bring PO4 down and it has the benefit of feeding your corals too. I like bacteria better than chemical treatments, but that’s my preference.