Did I unlock all the phosphate from 100#s of live rock?

[jccaclimber]

I follow the instructions and open it properly.
I wipe all fingerprints
Micro bubble can be an issue.
My biggest issue is that my tester shuts off in exactly 2 minutes. Not hardly enough time to pull and open the vial, pour contents carefully into vial, check that I poured it all, close cap, shake, inspect, deal with bubbles, wipe down, insert into tester, close and push button. I will never buy another Hanna tester.

I have 2 workarounds for this (at least on my phosphorus ULR):
1. I tear open the packet before starting. I start the test, then right before the meter shuts off I hold the button down so it starts the 3 minute timer. The Hanna directions imply that the test should be in the meter during that time, but it doesn't actually matter until the end of the count down. I settle the vial for about the first 60 seconds of that countdown, roll it around once to get the micro bubbles off the walls, wipe any fingerprints, and have it in the meter with the lid closed and 60 seconds remaining to get any last few bubbles out. If you let the vial settle on its side (before going in the meter) the bubbles settle out even faster, less distance to rise.
2. Just use one vial for the test and the other vial for the blank. I can see a variety of flaws with this method, but when I've tested it in practice I've seen no difference. My method was: Blank in first vial>Test still in first vial>Reset meter>Blank in second vial> immediate test in first vial. You can also put clear water in both and test a couple times swapping the order. In my case it resulted in 0 readings each way multiple times, so the error is below what the meter will detect as a difference.

Yea, @Hanna Instruments knew 2 minutes was a huge issue so they changed the timeout. But they were more interested in turning a profit than selling us a quality product so they left they crappy ones out there instead of recalling.

While I'm bothered by the timeout time as well, mine doesn't time out until a bit more than 3 minutes. However, given how many years they sold those, expecting a free one does seem a bit excessive. Maybe a trade-in discount, but IMO recalls are for products that break, cause safety hazards, etc.

 

[Daddy-o]

Red Sea Phosphate Pro arrived and water tests at .03
Gonna run a quick test with the Hanna

 

[Daddy-o]

Did 2 tests with the Hanna:
with a 1 tube test - .09
with a 2 tube test - .09
and the Red Sea was .03
Which ever one is correct, I am now below .1 - right where I want to be for now
Gonna give it a couple days and measure again - I am still running PhosGuard in the reactor.
Given the fact that I feed 4 times a day, I really dont think it is even possible for the reef to hit absolute zero phoshate
Cheers! Mark

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I am currently struggling with this. I actually came to the chem forum to start a thread but hey.. there is already a thread...

I have spent a lot of time reading various RHF articles on phosphate, its sources, etc. My setup...

800 gallons of water, about 400? lbs of live rock. Half of which was in a pretty filthy system and half was acid bathed. The system has been up and runnning since May. I have the Milwaukie low range phos tester and fresh reagents.

First phosphate test was .70 YIKES !! There was not much coral in the tank so zapped it down to .20 and then .18. Tested a week later .45. ? More lanthium. This cycle has gone on for a couple months. Dose lanthium, drop the phos and then rapidly climbs up. I have gone through 4 bottle of the stuff.

One thing that is interesting is that if I use the numbers on the back of the bottle as a guide for reduction amounts I am not seeng that level of reduction. I am basically adding 45ml at a time, and seeing a .1 redcution.

I went through something like this on my first tank with lots of dry pukani rock.. am I just slowly getting rid of phosphate in the rock?

Other info..
I am on well water but I have a 9 stage RODI system. 5 micron>1 micron> carbon> two RO catridges > anion resin >cation resin> anion resin > mixed DI bed. (carbonates or low PH I zap an entire anion cartridge with 100 gallons of water. always zero tds though.

Feeding home made seafood and nori diet. I did use a can of clams on this last batch which likely has a lot of phosphates? I did not find canned clams on the table of food/phos amounts here: https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-chemistry-phosphate-and-math-yes-you-need-to-understand-both/

Thoughts?

 

[Daddy-o]

I am currently struggling with this. I actually came to the chem forum to start a thread but hey.. there is already a thread...

I have spent a lot of time reading various RHF articles on phosphate, its sources, etc. My setup...

800 gallons of water, about 400? lbs of live rock. Half of which was in a pretty filthy system and half was acid bathed. The system has been up and runnning since May. I have the Milwaukie low range phos tester and fresh reagents.

First phosphate test was .70 YIKES !! There was not much coral in the tank so zapped it down to .20 and then .18. Tested a week later .45. ? More lanthium. This cycle has gone on for a couple months. Dose lanthium, drop the phos and then rapidly climbs up. I have gone through 4 bottle of the stuff.

One thing that is interesting is that if I use the numbers on the back of the bottle as a guide for reduction amounts I am not seeng that level of reduction. I am basically adding 45ml at a time, and seeing a .1 redcution.

I went through something like this on my first tank with lots of dry pukani rock.. am I just slowly getting rid of phosphate in the rock?

Other info..
I am on well water but I have a 9 stage RODI system. 5 micron>1 micron> carbon> two RO catridges > anion resin >cation resin> anion resin > mixed DI bed. (carbonates or low PH I zap an entire anion cartridge with 100 gallons of water. always zero tds though.

Feeding home made seafood and nori diet. I did use a can of clams on this last batch which likely has a lot of phosphates? I did not find canned clams on the table of food/phos amounts here: https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-chemistry-phosphate-and-math-yes-you-need-to-understand-both/

Thoughts?

Need a bigger bottle of LC? I do think once we remove the Phos. from the water column, it will continue to leach until the water and rocks are at equalibrium. I was worried about the roller coaster on my phosphate so I am just going to work on a daily small dose moving forward. My nitrates are about 11 so I dont want to adjust my feeding at this time.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I am leaning towards dosing 10 or so a day. What is surprising is how fast they rebound. Last night they were .18, this morning .24

 

[excell007]

am I just slowly getting rid of phosphate in the rock?

Short answer is yes. When you reduce the phosphate on the water the rocks will leach out absorved phosphate until phosphate on the water is equal to the phosphate on the rocks. This cycle will continue until absorved phosphate is at your target level.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Well. why don't I just drain the whole system and fill it with LC? How much would 800 gallons of LC cost?

I will answer my own question... $79,950. ok, so that is not a good solution.

 

[excell007]

Well. why don't I just drain the whole system and fill it with LC? How much would 800 gallons of LC cost?

If you're using Phosphate-E about $93K, maybe you can get a better price for bulk purchase

 

[jccaclimber]

I am currently struggling with this. I actually came to the chem forum to start a thread but hey.. there is already a thread...

I have spent a lot of time reading various RHF articles on phosphate, its sources, etc. My setup...

800 gallons of water, about 400? lbs of live rock. Half of which was in a pretty filthy system and half was acid bathed. The system has been up and runnning since May. I have the Milwaukie low range phos tester and fresh reagents.

First phosphate test was .70 YIKES !! There was not much coral in the tank so zapped it down to .20 and then .18. Tested a week later .45. ? More lanthium. This cycle has gone on for a couple months. Dose lanthium, drop the phos and then rapidly climbs up. I have gone through 4 bottle of the stuff.

One thing that is interesting is that if I use the numbers on the back of the bottle as a guide for reduction amounts I am not seeng that level of reduction. I am basically adding 45ml at a time, and seeing a .1 redcution.

I went through something like this on my first tank with lots of dry pukani rock.. am I just slowly getting rid of phosphate in the rock?

Other info..
I am on well water but I have a 9 stage RODI system. 5 micron>1 micron> carbon> two RO catridges > anion resin >cation resin> anion resin > mixed DI bed. (carbonates or low PH I zap an entire anion cartridge with 100 gallons of water. always zero tds though.

Feeding home made seafood and nori diet. I did use a can of clams on this last batch which likely has a lot of phosphates? I did not find canned clams on the table of food/phos amounts here: https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-chemistry-phosphate-and-math-yes-you-need-to-understand-both/

Thoughts?

High dissolved CO2 in the source water? In terms of managing long term costs I'm more curious why your RO system eats resin.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

High dissolved CO2 in the source water? In terms of managing long term costs I'm more curious why your RO system eats resin.

I have read it is the presence of high levels of carbonate. If I let the water sit for a couple days before processing I could probably relieve the issue but I suppose you could say I don't want to do that. I just added an anion catridge before the triple DI system. You can recharge the DI resin by dunking it in lye solution and rinsing it so cost isn't really that big deal.

 

[jccaclimber]

I have read it is the presence of high levels of carbonate. If I let the water sit for a couple days before processing I could probably relieve the issue but I suppose you could say I don't want to do that. I just added an anion catridge before the triple DI system. You can recharge the DI resin by dunking it in lye solution and rinsing it so cost isn't really that big deal.

I'll have to remember that about recharging DI resin. By carbonate do you mean carbonic acid? Same as dissolved CO2 (Randy might point out a technical difference, so don't hold me to that perfectly). I'm trying to think of things that pass through the membrane.

You're experiencing why some people like to purge out all of the phosphate in advance of a build. This thread is actually pretty helpful, I had a higher phosphate issue in my last large tank (currently torn down from a move, but will go back up). I just tolerated the high phosphate, but you're all making solving the issue look pretty reasonable all things considered. My current system with a subset of the rock from that system runs a phosphate deficit, go figure.

 

[ingchr1]

...I just tolerated the high phosphate, but you're all making solving the issue look pretty reasonable all things considered...

For clarification, were you tolerating the numbers themselves or the effects it was having on your reef?

At what level/point does the issue need to be solved? Earlier it was posted a level of 0.19 can cause growth issues, but there are successful reefs out there running higher.

Trying to clarify things for my knowledge and how to run my reef.

 

[Daddy-o]

This thread is actually pretty helpful, I had a higher phosphate issue in my last large tank (currently torn down from a move, but will go back up). I just tolerated the high phosphate, but you're all making solving the issue look pretty reasonable all things considered. My current system with a subset of the rock from that system runs a phosphate deficit, go figure.

For the longest time (a couple years) I fought high phosphate. First with a lot of GFO, then with a lot of Phosguard. I probably cleaned the reactor over 100 times and my phosphate was not much lower.
Now I have added 18 drops and its down - so simple. Wish I had known this a long time ago!
Cheers! Mark

 

[excell007]

At what level/point does the issue need to be solved? Earlier it was posted a level of 0.19 can cause growth issues, but there are successful reefs out there running higher.

Trying to clarify things for my knowledge and how to run my reef.

Each reef is different and there are many tanks looking so good at higher numbers. 5 months ago I decided to convert my 15YO FOWLR to reef so I am trying to lower my phosphate. I started at >4 and now it is fluctating between 1.5 and 1.8, still a long way to go, but I don't dose continuously and will sometimes skip a week or two to allow the rocks to leach. 15 days ago I added a few frags, and it looks like they are tolerating the parameters well, I even see new polyps growing on the duncan and zoa, acan is plump too.

 

[Daddy-o]

Yesterday the Hanna put me at .09 - I added 3 drops this morning
Just now measured .12 - added 12 drops
Will measure again tomorrow afternoon and dose accordingly

 

[jccaclimber]

For clarification, were you tolerating the numbers themselves or the effects it was having on your reef?

At what level/point does the issue need to be solved? Earlier it was posted a level of 0.19 can cause growth issues, but there are successful reefs out there running higher.

Trying to clarify things for my knowledge and how to run my reef.

A bit of both. I was happy with the growth rate in the last year of the tank, but the fact that I only got to see it 2 weekends a month helped that a bit. It's amazing how much you notice changes after being away for a little while. I had an awful hair algae issue I wasn't able to beat (I've since learned that higher strength H2O2 handily solves this issue).

Foggy memory, but I remember phosphate often being in the 0.2 PPM range, and I wanted it to be closer to 0.05 to 0.1 PPM to try things out. Having somewhere around 600 gallons of water volume, the few times I ran a small GFO reactor I didn't really see a difference a couple days in.

For various reasons I was not able to have the large CUC I wanted, and I didn't have high enough coral coverage to keep the hair algae away. Most of the tanks I have personally seen with higher nutrient values and no algae either have a huge CUC, or very little exposed rockwork for algae to potentially grow on.

There was a large clam (roughly filled the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket), but my alk consumption was somewhere (foggy memory) north of 2 dkh/day and I didn't find any massive sludge piles when I tore down, so stuff was growing.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

All my corals are doing fine although the color looks terrible. That i can tolerate. Death i can not. All the systems that run higher phos numbers are typically really mature. I saw a magna presentation and it was all about how he didnt do much maintenance and had super high phos. And i was like... this is helping how? No real talk about why..

 

[jccaclimber]

All my corals are doing fine although the color looks terrible. That i can tolerate. Death i can not. All the systems that run higher phos numbers are typically really mature. I saw a magna presentation and it was all about how he didnt do much maintenance and had super high phos. And i was like... this is helping how? No real talk about why..

What are your nitrate levels?

 

[Daddy-o]

Today's phosphate is .09 (dropped .03 after last nights 12 drops) - so dosed 12 more drops
Cheers! Mark