High phosphate, any solutions?

[SuziQuatrooo]

Hi, I have attached my test results from today. We have tried everything (we think) to reduce the phosphate. We have used rowaphos, reef zlememts carbo+ NO3 and PO4 reduction. Tank has a skimmer, reef Matt, all Red Sea and we do a 10% water change weekly.
Everything in the tank looks healthy, just the phosphate being high, using a hanna phosphate checker.
we make our own RO, it says on the screen that it’s clean (on 0) but could it be the RO?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Susan

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are many ways to reduce phosphate, but your level is not an emergency. Some great tanks are much higher.

Methods include GFO, aluminum oxide, lanthanum, growing macroalgae, algal the scrubber, and more.

 

[CHSUB]

During water charges I would focus on detritus removal, blowing rocks and lightly racking the top layer of sand. Water should be quite dirty. Clean any mechanical filters often, twice weekly minimum. If possible only feed what is consumed within seconds and switch to foods that don’t have a very high % of po4 like mysin shrimp. I like Rowa and would continue using, maybe increase usage carefully. Finally if everything is great would not change much or too fast, kind of “massage” the number to start a trend towards a lower number.

This is my method to general tank management, nutrients can raise or be difficult to control if rocks are too tightly packed or flow is insufficient creating dead spots that collect detritus.