High Barium, Phosphorus and Phosphate

downonthereef · Jun 15, 2021

Hello, I've been having a few issues with corals recently, bailing polyps etc.

I sent off for an ICP test which has came back with the following results for Barium, Phosphorus and Phosphate.

Barium :

178 µg/l

0 - 10 µg/l

Phosphorus:

Phosphate:

103 µg/l	6 - 23 µg/l
0.31518 mg/l	0.018 - 0.07 mg/l

What happens in the reef tank with these being so high? How have they got so high (I know how Phosphate gets high, but Barium and Phosphorus), and how to lower these levels?

I change 10% of the water weekly, only a few soft corals in the tank now and my salt mix is Fritz RPM at 35ppt. No dosing only a capful of phyto daily.

Everything else on the test is in the green, calcium being slightly high at 524

anemoneanatomy · Jun 15, 2021

Barium is allowed to be in US water up to 2 mg/L, so it could come from there. Are you using tap water or did you ever use it? Otherwise, what kind of salt mix are you using? Maybe it was a trace element in there and you got a batch that was not mixed properly?

Phosphorous could be caused by decaying plant material being broken down by bacteria -- this results in inorganic phosphorous. Do you have either a significant algae issue or just a lot of macroalgae, perhaps in a sump or a refugium?

downonthereef · Jun 16, 2021

anemoneanatomy said:
Barium is allowed to be in US water up to 2 mg/L, so it could come from there. Are you using tap water or did you ever use it? Otherwise, what kind of salt mix are you using? Maybe it was a trace element in there and you got a batch that was not mixed properly?

Phosphorous could be caused by decaying plant material being broken down by bacteria -- this results in inorganic phosphorous. Do you have either a significant algae issue or just a lot of macroalgae, perhaps in a sump or a refugium?

I'm from the UK and use an RODI unit which pumps out 0TDS water, I have no algae issues in the main display, though there is hair algae and chaeto in the sump. My saltmix is Fritz RPM, I usually use RS Coral Pro but moved over to RPM after hearing good stuff about it.