2 year struggle with phos.

[BryanM]

I’ve had elevated phosphates for two years now. Dosed lc, done gfo in a reactor.

Last phos test with gfo about 2-3 weeks ago, .17.

Removed gfo, today .41.

I know this is a hard thing to fix, I’m not terribly worried about it either.

Only reason I’m trying to control it is bjd with torches and hammers.

Wonder what folks would do.

I have a very oversized ats (rain 8), and it has brought nitrates down to 5 or less where I’m dosing sodium nitrate about once a week.

But my “normal” phos 3x I’ve stopped gfo or lc goes right back to .4x

 

[Reef Jedi]

Curious, do water changes help at all? Have you tested your RO water for phos?

 

[Fish Fan]

Dude, your tank(s) look great, are you sure there's a problem?

 

[MegabiteOG]

If I recall correctly, you don’t do water changes at all. If so, you may consider a water change regiment even if it’s minimal.

LIKE @Fish Fan said, you’re tank looks great, but if you think the elevated PO4 is causing you problems, addressing it seems like the right thing to do.

 

[allof fish]

What do you use to test? Even the Hanna checkers can be inaccurate at times. Maybe icp for accuracy? I definitely would test your rodi water. Kinda weird it jumps around like that

 

[JonasRoman]

You must find the source. No water change does not solely explain this because you remove po4, snd then bounce back do the system have bound a lot of po4.
Fish load? How many litres? Stone? What kind? A lot of algue or only calcareous algue? Sand bed? Is it reasonable white? Cyan or dino?
Dosing organic carbon?

Jonas

 

[VintageReefer]

Water changes will not lower phosphate

You need to absorb it, and remove it. It will ping pong up and down bring it down to zero, and in a few days it will bounce back up. That is from the rocks and sand leaching it out to replace what was removed. Eventually they will stop.

I don’t believe phosphate causes bjd. I’ve had my tank over 1.0 with no effect on euphyllia

 

[maroun.c]

At these high levels ur GFO would be used very fast so I would do the following
Run dual reactors for GFO abd refill one of them.every week.
If u have corals in the tank check levels weekly to avoid rapid drops.
U will see po4 drop and then raise and thats because of ur saturated rocks abd sand leaching po4. I took me 4-5 months to drop high PO4 levels.
I find Rowaphos to be more aggressive than other GFOs
Laso run water changes in parallel using 0 TDS RODI water. Make sure skimmer is working the best it can.