Constant High Alkalinity and Phosphate

uscggirl · Apr 10, 2021

Hello everyone. I have a situation where my Alkalinity and Phosphate stay high. I’ve tried to read all the posts having anything to do with Alkalinity, but it seems most people want to keep it raised, while I’d like to get it lower. I’ve tried dosing some vinegar, and that helped for a day, but it went way up again. From 11.8 to 13.9 in under 16 hours. My Salinity and Ph stay stable at 1.025 and 7.8 respectively. I’d like to increase Ph, but want to get the Alkalinity sorted first. I am new to saltwater and spent a few years with freshwater. I’m only running a 10 gallon tank with HOB and UV filter for now while I learn and make plans for tank size and equipment. Other parameters are pretty much on target with Calcium finally rising from 348 on April 6, to 480 today. I’ve read I need to stop dosing, but I haven’t dosed anything. I do have some Phosguard in my HOB in hopes it will lower Phosphate. Not really helping though. Any ideas or suggestions are most welcome! Stock is currently 2 clowns, 3 yellow damsels, 1 blue damsel, and emerald crab If that helps. I’ve been doing a two gallon water change every other day.

uscggirl · Apr 13, 2021

So I had some errands to run today, which kept me from messing with my tank. At 1745 I was back home and did my testing to see what’s happened in the last 24 hours since my last water change and detritus clean up.
Salinity - 1.027
Temp - 81.9
Ph - 7.78
Phosphates - 0.65
Alkalinity - 12.7
Calcium - 417
Magnesium - 1200
I was pretty happy with the Alkalinity staying low although still had those high phosphates and low magnesium. I thought maybe the clean up was putting the tank on the road to stability! With that thought in mind, I decided to move a rock I had gotten from the LFS when I first started this tank three months ago. Although I had blown detritus away from the sides, I knew there was a large build up in the cave area of the rock. Just pick it up, scoop that all out, and put it back was my plan. Holy cow!!! The smell and garbage suddenly released to the water was awful!! I pulled the rock out and it had a horrible sulfur smell and was all black in the part that was in the sand bed. I used a fine net to grab as much junk as I could out of the water, and did a four gallon (40%) water change immediately. I also pulled the filter, cleaned the slimy media rack, and added some ChemiPure Elite with GFO that had arrived today to combat the phosphates. I cleaned the intake filter of the UV sterilizer and started everything back up. Lights are off for the night,and I’m hopeful everyone is alive tomorrow! Poor babies! More errands tomorrow, but when I’m home, I’ll be researching the black rock and sulfur smell. Any insights anyone can provide are most welcome!! Just too much leftover food and junk around it so it suffocated?? It was my emerald crabs favorite cave, so the poor guy will have to find a new hangout. Interestingly, as I was frantically trying to get all the garbage out of the water, he was snatching things and eating like he was at an all you can eat buffet! He loves the crab cuisine I feed him, but at that point, you’d think he hadn’t eaten in a week. I hope his feeding frenzy didn’t poison the poor dude.

anthonygf · Apr 13, 2021

uscggirl said:
So I had some errands to run today, which kept me from messing with my tank. At 1745 I was back home and did my testing to see what’s happened in the last 24 hours since my last water change and detritus clean up.
Salinity - 1.027
Temp - 81.9
Ph - 7.78
Phosphates - 0.65
Alkalinity - 12.7
Calcium - 417
Magnesium - 1200
I was pretty happy with the Alkalinity staying low although still had those high phosphates and low magnesium. I thought maybe the clean up was putting the tank on the road to stability! With that thought in mind, I decided to move a rock I had gotten from the LFS when I first started this tank three months ago. Although I had blown detritus away from the sides, I knew there was a large build up in the cave area of the rock. Just pick it up, scoop that all out, and put it back was my plan. Holy cow!!! The smell and garbage suddenly released to the water was awful!! I pulled the rock out and it had a horrible sulfur smell and was all black in the part that was in the sand bed. I used a fine net to grab as much junk as I could out of the water, and did a four gallon (40%) water change immediately. I also pulled the filter, cleaned the slimy media rack, and added some ChemiPure Elite with GFO that had arrived today to combat the phosphates. I cleaned the intake filter of the UV sterilizer and started everything back up. Lights are off for the night,and I’m hopeful everyone is alive tomorrow! Poor babies! More errands tomorrow, but when I’m home, I’ll be researching the black rock and sulfur smell. Any insights anyone can provide are most welcome!! Just too much leftover food and junk around it so it suffocated?? It was my emerald crabs favorite cave, so the poor guy will have to find a new hangout. Interestingly, as I was frantically trying to get all the garbage out of the water, he was snatching things and eating like he was at an all you can eat buffet! He loves the crab cuisine I feed him, but at that point, you’d think he hadn’t eaten in a week. I hope his feeding frenzy didn’t poison the poor dude.

Wow. You may not have enough of the bacteria that consumes that material yet. Do you have your rock resting on the sand bed? Better on the glass. I would lower the temp to 77-78. Alk 8-8.5, salinity 1.025 works for me. If you get some of those Sea-Lab blocks I mentioned will help with mag and maybe raise your ph a little. Your local LFS may sell the Sea-Lab replenishers. According to Trident ICP, good magnesium levels should be between 1300-1500. I have always run mine over 1300, now around 1440. Also the high mag levels supposedly keeps algae to a minimum. Maybe that is why I never had any bad algae problems. I still have an emerald crab and a red mithrax crab, is the same as emerald but red. No problems with them yet. I started dosing iron several weeks ago and my phosphates started dropping, it was 0.1-0.06 range for the longest time. So maybe that is a good way to control po4, I am going to stop dosing iron and see what happens to po4.

anthonygf · Apr 13, 2021

Bottle bacteria may help. I use MicroBacter Clean and MicroBacter 7.

uscggirl · Apr 13, 2021

anthonygf said:
Wow. You may not have enough of the bacteria that consumes that material yet. Do you have your rock resting on the sand bed? Better on the glass. I would lower the temp to 77-78. Alk 8-8.5, salinity 1.025 works for me. If you get some of those Sea-Lab blocks I mentioned will help with mag and maybe raise your ph a little. Your local LFS may sell the Sea-Lab replenishers. According to Trident ICP, good magnesium levels should be between 1300-1500. I have always run mine over 1300, now around 1440. Also the high mag levels supposedly keeps algae to a minimum. Maybe that is why I never had any bad algae problems. I still have an emerald crab and a red mithrax crab, is the same as emerald but red. No problems with them yet. I started dosing iron several weeks ago and my phosphates started dropping, it was 0.1-0.06 range for the longest time. So maybe that is a good way to control po4, I am going to stop dosing iron and see what happens to po4.

Yes, definitely checking into the SeaLab blocks when I can catch a breath this week. Taking my Aunt to get her second Covid vaccine shot tomorrow, but then back to getting the tank sorted. Do need to lower the temp. It was too low, then too high. Need to find the sweet spot on the setting. Once I get one with a controller it will be much easier to be exact. Added a bit of RODI water to drop the Salinity a notch too. Getting the Alk down has been an ongoing battle, so I was actually pretty happy it only went up to 12.3 the past 24 hours. But definitely lower would be best. Best wishes on your po4 staying down!! That’s my other project for my tank. I’ll be checking on the bunch in the morning to make sure they all survive.

anthonygf · Apr 13, 2021

uscggirl said:
Yes, definitely checking into the SeaLab blocks when I can catch a breath this week. Taking my Aunt to get her second Covid vaccine shot tomorrow, but then back to getting the tank sorted. Do need to lower the temp. It was too low, then too high. Need to find the sweet spot on the setting. Once I get one with a controller it will be much easier to be exact. Added a bit of RODI water to drop the Salinity a notch too. Getting the Alk down has been an ongoing battle, so I was actually pretty happy it only went up to 12.3 the past 24 hours. But definitely lower would be best. Best wishes on your po4 staying down!! That’s my other project for my tank. I’ll be checking on the bunch in the morning to make sure they all survive.

I don't want my po4 to be so low. I want it in the range that works for me which is 0.1-0.06. If po4 drops to zero can cause problems. Nitrate and phosphate are nutrients that corals and clams use. They will starve if both drop to zero.

anthonygf · Apr 13, 2021

My corals and clam consume about 0.6ppm of alk daily so I need to dose 1/2 teaspoon of powder a day. When my corals get bigger they will consume more. I spread it out to 1/8 tsp 4 times a day to prevent shock. Gives me an excuse to visit my tank.

goodnight.

Subsea · May 8, 2021

uscggirl said:
So I had some errands to run today, which kept me from messing with my tank. At 1745 I was back home and did my testing to see what’s happened in the last 24 hours since my last water change and detritus clean up.
Salinity - 1.027
Temp - 81.9
Ph - 7.78
Phosphates - 0.65
Alkalinity - 12.7
Calcium - 417
Magnesium - 1200
I was pretty happy with the Alkalinity staying low although still had those high phosphates and low magnesium. I thought maybe the clean up was putting the tank on the road to stability! With that thought in mind, I decided to move a rock I had gotten from the LFS when I first started this tank three months ago. Although I had blown detritus away from the sides, I knew there was a large build up in the cave area of the rock. Just pick it up, scoop that all out, and put it back was my plan. Holy cow!!! The smell and garbage suddenly released to the water was awful!! I pulled the rock out and it had a horrible sulfur smell and was all black in the part that was in the sand bed. I used a fine net to grab as much junk as I could out of the water, and did a four gallon (40%) water change immediately. I also pulled the filter, cleaned the slimy media rack, and added some ChemiPure Elite with GFO that had arrived today to combat the phosphates. I cleaned the intake filter of the UV sterilizer and started everything back up. Lights are off for the night,and I’m hopeful everyone is alive tomorrow! Poor babies! More errands tomorrow, but when I’m home, I’ll be researching the black rock and sulfur smell. Any insights anyone can provide are most welcome!! Just too much leftover food and junk around it so it suffocated?? It was my emerald crabs favorite cave, so the poor guy will have to find a new hangout. Interestingly, as I was frantically trying to get all the garbage out of the water, he was snatching things and eating like he was at an all you can eat buffet! He loves the crab cuisine I feed him, but at that point, you’d think he hadn’t eaten in a week. I hope his feeding frenzy didn’t poison the poor dude.

At this point, you should realize that immaculate clean is not good in a reef tank. The crab eating detritus is your indicator. The bottom of the food chain starts there.