So a couple of days a week, I maintain numerous tanks around the Phoenix area. Because like you at times my Phosphates are on the upswing and I have 4 large fish among 12. I feed heavy and certainly noticed higher numbers. I agree with one of the replies that the skimmer is not going to drop these numbers. Anyhow, so a bit of science here. I made it a point to test (Hanna Phos) tanks with high coralline algae growth and found out that many of them were above .50 and below .90
I had just set up my 180g a year and a half ago new Caribsea life rock. I did have a couple of pieces of live. The structures look amazing just nothing biological happening. (Trust me I’m going somewhere with this) My personal pursuit was seeing coralline take hold. The red coralline from the live rock was spreading nicely everywhere but no pinks or purple. Yes I was adding small rock etc to seed the purple ca. so I checked my phosphates (Hanna) and they were off the charts at 1.95 This was 3 months ago. Arggg!!! Lightened up on feeding, did some more frequent water changes, added Phosgaurd, and finally Phosphate Rx. I’m now sitting nicely at 0.48 and just last night discovered 7 or 8 round purple spots on my plastic return lock lines. Yay! So I still want to increase my feeding back to the way it was before without spiking my phosphates. This week I’ll be purchasing an Ice Cap Algae Scrubber. I’ve read that based on all that this extracts from the water, I can increase the food again and not have these nutrients and phosphates get a foothold. Wish you the best.
I had just set up my 180g a year and a half ago new Caribsea life rock. I did have a couple of pieces of live. The structures look amazing just nothing biological happening. (Trust me I’m going somewhere with this) My personal pursuit was seeing coralline take hold. The red coralline from the live rock was spreading nicely everywhere but no pinks or purple. Yes I was adding small rock etc to seed the purple ca. so I checked my phosphates (Hanna) and they were off the charts at 1.95 This was 3 months ago. Arggg!!! Lightened up on feeding, did some more frequent water changes, added Phosgaurd, and finally Phosphate Rx. I’m now sitting nicely at 0.48 and just last night discovered 7 or 8 round purple spots on my plastic return lock lines. Yay! So I still want to increase my feeding back to the way it was before without spiking my phosphates. This week I’ll be purchasing an Ice Cap Algae Scrubber. I’ve read that based on all that this extracts from the water, I can increase the food again and not have these nutrients and phosphates get a foothold. Wish you the best.