High Phosphate and Growing Discouraged

[shanedag]

Hi All -

I'm new to the hobby and am starting to hit the stage where I'm feeling really discouraged and lost. My tank (Waterbox 180.5) has been running for about 7 months now. During that time, I've had no problem adding fish. They all have adapted well and seem happy and healthy. Corals on the other hand, I just cannot seem to get a grasp on. I see these photos of amazing tanks with flourishing corals, and mine either don't grow or die a couple months after adding.

I hope I am narrowing in on the cause (High Phosphate level) and looking for some guidance on how to correct it and then prevent it going forward. Apologies this will be a bit long, but want to make sure I provide as much information about my situation as possible so the experts aren't guessing.

Here's some current stats on my tank:

Temp - 77.5 - 78
Salt - 35ppt
Alk - 8.1
PH - 7.6 - 7.9 (Can't seem to get this to go any higher)
Calcium - 486
Magnesium - 1411
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - Currently at about 10. This has been as high as 40ish but I've been driving it down with NOPOX
Phosphate - Getting reading of 196ppb on the Hanna ULR. I am translating this to around 0.601ppm. I've had this as low as 0.28ppm in past but never any lower than that. I did just test my RODI water and it registered 0 for Phosphate.

Clearly my Phosphate is too high. I used to run GFO in a reactor (Back when I was achieving the 0.28ppm results), but stopped doing that and switched to using Chemi-Pure Blue.

Some additional information about my feeding/maintenance:

• I have around 14 fish. I feed three times a day. In morning, they get a small amount of TDO pellets and a square of seaweed on a clip. In afternoon and evening, they get 2 cubes of Reef Frenzy (hand fed for a few minutes to my cowfish, blue throat triggers clowns and foxface. Then remaining is dissolved in tank water and dispersed for everyone else.) along with a square of seaweed on a clip. All the fish are excited and hungry every time I feed
• I dose 20ml NOPOX each morning
• I add 50ml phytoplankton each morning
• I have to clean my filter socks (one mesh and one felt) each morning or they begin to overflow
• I have to keep the glass clean every couple of days
• Protein Skimmer is productive and I clean once weekly
• Automatic water changes of 5 gallons daily
• Add 20ml Reef Energy AB Plus 3-4 times a week

Some guidance I'm looking for:

1. To try to solve the immediate problem, should I switch back to running the GFO in the reactor or is there a better course of action?
2. Assuming I can get it under control, any thoughts on how to better control it? Maybe I'm overfeeding, but I've assumed not since fish are always excited and gathered at the front when I feed. They act like they haven't been fed in days each time.

Thanks for reading and helping a discouraged noob.

 

[Uncle99]

Can you describe your filtration system, amount of rock and or marine pure and do you use a sump with refugium, macro and lighting?


You do need to mop up a lot of phosphate at .6ppm and GFO would be expensive.

Don’t let it get to you.

Just employ the right mechanism to keep that at say .1ppm.

Phosphate is one of those things that needs to stay in the Goldilocks zone, to little they starve and die, to much and dwindle as well.

 

[shanedag]

Can you describe your filtration system, amount of rock and or marine pure and do you use a sump with refugium, macro and lighting?


You do need to mop up a lot of phosphate at .6ppm and GFO would be expensive.

Don’t let it get to you.

Just employ the right mechanism to keep that at say .1ppm.

I am running a sump. No refugium...no room for that, plus protein skimmer, plus heater. Have probably 200lbs live rock and 140lbs live sand from Tampa Bay Saltwater. Protein Skimmer is Regal 200-S in sump. Also running dual BRS reactors. One with Carbon and the other used to be GFO, but is now a packet of Chemi-Pure Blue. Running 2 other packets of Chemi-Pure Blue in the sump just before the return water chamber. 3x 11oz pouches of Chemi-Pure Blue total. No macro algae. Lights are 3 of the AI 32HD LED.

 

[T-J]

Holy crap, to me that seems like a LOT of nutrients being poured into your system.
Daily phyto, 2 cubes frozen, pellets and to top it off, one of the highest PO4 contributors (IMO), AB+.

Pellets and frozen can have high phosphates. To help reduce it in frozen, rinse your frozen foods in RODI before adding to the tank. They make little rinsers for this purpose if you wanna buy one.

If you don't have any corals (I assume you don't because you said they all die), why are you dosing AB+? I've used it on two different tanks and had nothing but PO4 spikes from it. I've since switched to Brightwell Coral Amino. The same for the phyto. Unless you have a huge amount of corals that need to feed on AB+ and phyto (yeah, I know pods and whatnot eat it too), I don't see the need to add this stuff.

 

[shanedag]

I do have some corals in there right now. They aren't dead, but are not growing. Have a few hammers, few octospawn, some acans, few torches, couple duncans, couple plate corals, few zoas, toadstool leather, and a couple other small corals.

 

[Uncle99]

Ok, with no fuge to light, then we are back at reducing PO4 chemically. Heavily fed tanks run fine but we need to mop up phosphate that accumulates, then slows our coral growth.

At .6ppm, I’d consider at LC product like agent green or phosphate x to get phosphate down to say .2ppm, then run some Rowaphos in your reactor to bring the remainder down to 0.07-.1ppm.

Using an LC, which is a liquid, will bind immediately with phosphate and will make your water go cloudy for and hour or so. The cloud is the phosphate which has bonded and can be removed by 100-200 micron sock.

You could GFO the whole number but that I would expect to be expensive.

Your going to struggle a bit without a fuge in your case.

You could look at your feeding regime in terms of phosphate added and try and lower that as well.

 

[guylaga]

Using an LC, which is a liquid, will bind immediately with phosphate and will make your water go cloudy for and hour or so. The cloud is the phosphate which has bonded and can be removed by 100-200 micron sock.

Want to point out that a 100-200 micron sock will NOT catch lanthum precipitate, and using one is about the same as just dosing direct into the tank (and a great way to kill off fish from clogging their gills).

I wont dose Lanthum into anything other than a 10 micron sock, and really a 5 or even 1 is much safer.

 

[shanedag]

Dumb Question. Is Phospat-E from Brightwell lanthum product?

 

[Uncle99]

Yup, this is a phosphate remover, used it before.
I can’t use anything below 100 micron or my flow slows way to much and most is removed through a good skim anyways.

If you can find lower than 100 micron and it works in your system, sure, but not mandatory.

Have a read of Brightwell instructs, I’d use as they direct.

And it’s never a “dumb” question…ever….

Hope these responses help.

 

[shanedag]

Little update. I decided to hold on the lanthum for now. Started with some GFO and saw an almost immediate reduction from .60 down to .22. Tossed the GFO and added some Rowaphos to my reactor (12 TBSP). 24 hours later, saw a reduction down to .175. Another 24 hours later, down to .166. This 24 hour period seemed to slow, so I thought maybe the Rowaphos needed replaced. Swapped it out for a new 12 TBSP. This morning (24 hours later), I am down to .132. I also increased my auto water change over last 2 days to 20 gallons each day. To anyone who has used Rowaphos before to reduce phosphates, is it normal for it to be this gradual? I'm okay with gradual; just want to be sure I shouldn't be using more or replacing it more often.

Thanks!

 

[T-J]

I don't think it's slow at all. With the Rowaphos, you saw reductions of .045, .009 & .034. These are drops of 20%, 5% and 20% respectively. Those are pretty big jumps in 24 hours. I would have recommended taking it even slower, especially that first drop of .60 to .22.

 

[hllb]

I would double check your RODI phosphate too. That's freshwater so you can't use a marine kit on it. You should test freshly made saltwater to get a feel for if your RODI may have phosphate in it.

 

[shanedag]

Thanks @T-J . Agreed definitely on the first drop. I didn't expect that large of a drop that fast. Appreciate the reassurance on the Rowaphos. I'll leave what I have in there and monitor daily.

@hllb - Thanks for the advice. I did check both my RODI fresh water and a fresh batch of saltwater. Both came in at 0.