!HELP! Phosphate Question

Chrisjordan004

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Hi Reefers, Need some assistance!

I'm having a hard time keeping my phosphates down and was hoping for some guidance. My tank is just over 6 months old and I've been performing 10% water changes every other week since I started it up. It's a 20 gallon Waterbox Cube, and I'm running chemi-pure blue, activated carbon, and filter floss in the media basket, a protein skimmer (20 hours per day) and a nano media reactor with phosguard running 24/7. I have 2 clownfish, a griessingei goby and a cleanup crew that consists of various snails, hermit crabs and a sand sifting starfish. No crazy algae breakouts in the main display, though I do see some GHA growing in the sump chambers.

I feed the fish a few pellets a day, and I dose 1.25ml of Brightwell Aquatics CoralAmino 5 days a week. The other 2 days I'm feeding my corals with the recommended dosage of Reef Roids as my tank is LPS heavy. I started to notice some receding in the flesh of a few of my euphyllia and up until a few weeks ago when I noticed the issue I hadn't paid much attention to my phosphates. I'm using Hanna test kits and my ULR Phosphate results were 0.49 last week. Everything else was within the desired range (1.025 salinity, 77.5 temp, 0 ammonia, 5 ppm Nitrates, 1350 ppm Mg, 525 Ca, 9.0 Alk, 8.2 pH). I run a doser with Alk, Calc, and Mg to keep those parameters in check and they've been fairly stable.

I figured the phosphates were the culprit for my receding Euphyllia so I performed a 20% water change earlier than usual to see what effect it would have on my readings. Phosphates dropped from 0.49 to 0.27, still high, but moving in the right direction. I waited a day or so and saw a noticeable improvement in the polyp extension of the affected corals and performed another 10% water change to continue to lower the phosphates. Next reading came in at 0.16 and at this time I also changed out the phosguard in my reactor to see if maybe it had been exhausted. It was amazing to watch as my euphyllia recession had begun to reverse at night as the flesh started to grow back! Next day, I left the water alone, and tested phosphates to see what effect if any the newly replaced phosguard media had on my numbers. They now read 0.13. Thought I had it figured out.

2 days later (yesterday) it was time for my bi-weekly 10% water change, so I conducted that and measured my phosphates later that afternoon. They'd jumped back up to 0.16 though my corals still looked happy. Measured the phosphates again today and they're reading 0.20... a 0.04 ppm jump from yesterday's readings despite everything that I've implemented as described above. What else could be causing the steady rise? I feel like it can't be the result of over-feeding as I hardly feed the fish and the corals are only being fed twice a week. They still look dramatically better than they did when my readings were 0.50, but it's only a matter of time before my phosphates get there again unless I'm doing water changes every few days to keep them in check. Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated!

Here's the tank today:

20210224_133359.jpg
 

Coral-vault

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Have you checked your salt mix or rodi? Also make sure your foods do not leave extra phosphate. normally pellets are high.. reef roids I have no experience with.
 
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Chrisjordan004

Chrisjordan004

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Have you checked your salt mix or rodi? Also make sure your foods do not leave extra phosphate. normally pellets are high.. reef roids I have no experience with.
That's an excellent point! I figured it wasn't the salt mix because water changes have demonstrated a positive effect on my phosphate battle, but I just tested my RODI that's sitting in my ATO reservoir and it's reading 0.09! That's got to be the problem right?
 

Jekyl

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Your RoDi should be removing that. Which do you use? Does it have a tds meter?
 
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Chrisjordan004

Chrisjordan004

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Your RoDi should be removing that. Which do you use? Does it have a tds meter?
I use store bought RODI from an LFS down the street... I just measured the phosphates of some of their RODI in a 5 gallon jug and it read .05, which leads me to believe maybe my ATO reservoir needed cleaning. I pulled the reservoir and the water in there did look a little dirty, so I cleaned it out and topped it off with fresh RODI. Will see if that has any effect on things. Thanks for all the input everyone!
 

Bpfor3

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RODI should be 0 phosphates. I doubt its coming from your ATO. What is said above about reef roads is true. If you are using it per their directions its likely way too much Also would recommend he switch to frozen food. How about using a little GFO in the reactor? Phosguard, if we are talking about the same thing, is quick acting, but used up in about 4-7 days. That could be why you are yo-yoing. GFO will last longer and is gentler with the swings.

Tank looks good though! Just another reef problem to solve!

Good luck!
 

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