High Phosphate - give refugium more time or vodka dose?

[LMSquire]

Hey all!

RSR 350 G2 about 7-8 months old…stocked it pretty quickly, looks great. But not getting the growth I’d like and also have some zoas and shrooms starting to close up. My phosphate has been up in the .35-.45 range for a couple of months despite water changes. Small fish stock.

I just started a small refugium in my sump, appropriate for the 90 gal total volume. Dosing phytoplankton and lots of good pods going on. But I can’t help but think that if my PO3 was at proper levels I would have more growth. Nitrates are ok, around 20.

So my question is, do I give the macros more time to work and continue with my weekly water changes, or should I try vodka dosing or another way of lowering phosphates?

Happy thanksgiving reefing fam!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Nitrates of 20 and phosphate of .35-.50 are fine. There are no absolute "proper levels". (And carbon dosing is much more likely to reduce nitrate than phosphate).

You have a bunch of different types of coral in your tank... It can be difficult to find a balance where everything is happy. If soft corals are closing, I'd look at lighting and flow.

 

[00W]

Nitrates of 20 and phosphate of .35-.50 are fine. There is no absolute "proper levels". (And carbon dosing is much more likely to reduce nitrate than phosphate).

You have a bunch of different types of coral in your tank... It can be difficult to find a balance where everything is happy. If soft corals are closing, I'd look at lighting and flow.

^^ This sounds perfect.
Patience sounds good too.
Tank looks nice don't change too much too fast.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

^^ This sounds perfect.
Patience sounds good too.
Tank looks nice don't change too much too fast.

Sorry you quoted me before I fixed my typo, lol.

 

[00W]

Sorry you quoted me before I fixed my typo, lol.

Didn't see a typo thought what you said was bueno I'm also not that bright and pretty full from dinner lol.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Didn't see a typo thought what you said was bueno I'm also not that bright and pretty full from dinner lol.

It was minor. And you're plenty bright

 

[LMSquire]

Nitrates of 20 and phosphate of .35-.50 are fine. There are no absolute "proper levels". (And carbon dosing is much more likely to reduce nitrate than phosphate).

You have a bunch of different types of coral in your tank... It can be difficult to find a balance where everything is happy. If soft corals are closing, I'd look at lighting and flow.

Ok cool, because you hear “.04” as the number and I see posts where people post their params and if they’re over .2 they get responses saying that their levels are toxic lol. So some tanks thrive at .3-.4 then? Will the refugium help bring these levels down?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Ok cool, because you hear “.04” as the number and I see posts where people post their params and if they’re over .2 they get responses saying that their levels are toxic lol. So some tanks thrive at .3-.4 then? Will the refugium help bring these levels down?

A refugium can assist with nutrient export, yes.
And some tanks thrive at phosphates over 1.

 

[wculver]

Hey all!

RSR 350 G2 about 7-8 months old…stocked it pretty quickly, looks great. But not getting the growth I’d like and also have some zoas and shrooms starting to close up. My phosphate has been up in the .35-.45 range for a couple of months despite water changes. Small fish stock.

I just started a small refugium in my sump, appropriate for the 90 gal total volume. Dosing phytoplankton and lots of good pods going on. But I can’t help but think that if my PO3 was at proper levels I would have more growth. Nitrates are ok, around 20.

So my question is, do I give the macros more time to work and continue with my weekly water changes, or should I try vodka dosing or another way of lowering phosphates?

Happy thanksgiving reefing fam!

It's sometimes a challenge to find a place where everyone is happy in a mixed reef like this. There are also parameters that we do not measure that can weigh in on things. Ultimately this comes down to what works for your tank.

For me, the challenge became introducing new coral to the tank when phosphates were over 0.12 as measured by red sea. I mention my measuring tool because I've found this also matters here. If you're using hanna or Salifert I've found the three together may not align. At any rate, I decided to target around the 0.03 - 0.10 range for Phosphates and seems to keep everyone happy AND the added benefit it is not stressful to new additions in my setup.

I'm not a big fan of additives usually so for nutrient transport (which includes Nitrates and Phosphates) I leverage multiple avenues including:
1. Bio pellet reactor paired with a skimmer (Works great on Nitrates and is very sustainable)
2. Large Chaeto colony in the Sump and a large grow light. (This is nutrient transport and miscelaneous transport such as metals that may be introduced with their food)
3. I usually have to knock down Phosphate quarterly with high capacity GFO. This is not an additive as in this case the phosphate binds to the GFO and you simply take the media out. So it's subtractive instead of additive.

Like others have mentioned, don't change any of this quickly if you elect to make changes.

 

[LMSquire]

It's sometimes a challenge to find a place where everyone is happy in a mixed reef like this. There are also parameters that we do not measure that can weigh in on things. Ultimately this comes down to what works for your tank.

For me, the challenge became introducing new coral to the tank when phosphates were over 0.12 as measured by red sea. I mention my measuring tool because I've found this also matters here. If you're using hanna or Salifert I've found the three together may not align. At any rate, I decided to target around the 0.03 - 0.10 range for Phosphates and seems to keep everyone happy AND the added benefit it is not stressful to new additions in my setup.

I'm not a big fan of additives usually so for nutrient transport (which includes Nitrates and Phosphates) I leverage multiple avenues including:
1. Bio pellet reactor paired with a skimmer (Works great on Nitrates and is very sustainable)
2. Large Chaeto colony in the Sump and a large grow light. (This is nutrient transport and miscelaneous transport such as metals that may be introduced with their food)
3. I usually have to knock down Phosphate quarterly with high capacity GFO. This is not an additive as in this case the phosphate binds to the GFO and you simply take the media out. So it's subtractive instead of additive.

Like others have mentioned, don't change any of this quickly if you elect to make changes.

So considering I started my refugium with chaeto and other macros a couple of weeks ago, would you expect that to help bring down the po3 naturally?

 

[00W]

So considering I started my refugium with chaeto and other macros a couple of weeks ago, would you expect that to help bring down the po3 naturally?

Yes.
Slowly.
Give it time.

 

[wculver]

I'll give you a few points to noodle on:

I personally have 250 gallons running a fuge with chaeto and a couple other macros at a total size of 24x24x18 in size with a 150 watt LED grow light that I run 10 hours a day during the night. This setup grows a giant blob of chaeto that size every three weeks. I was unable to gain sustainable phosphate control just with this alone. They actually continued trending up, albiet a little slower.

The real challenge here that I found is your substrate and rocks are sequestering phosphate also. So as you reduce the phsophate in the water column the rocks and substrate will release what they have sequestered by osmosis as eventually their sequested amount will be higher than that of the water column. Until I realized this I didn't get the gravity of the situation I was really managing, the phosphate issue was far bigger than I realized. This is why I mentinoed my full routine.

That said, I would only do one thing at a time. Grow the chaeto and see what you can produce basically as fast as you can produce it. After about 4 weeks you should have a wild amount provided your grow light is good. BTW, I started with a chaetomax and while that was "okay" it didn't react well with the salt environment and lasted less than a year. I ended up getting a cheap one from Amazon for 35 dollars and not only does the chaeto grow bonkers now the light is over 3 years old and still kicking.

If by that point your phosphates don't trend down you should consider additional steps as the alternative would be them trending up further over time. If you'd like more detail on that LMK.

 

[LMSquire]

Yes.
Slowly.
Give it time.

Copy, will do. Slowly wrapping my reptilian brain around delayed gratification in this hobby haha

 

[LMSquire]

I'll give you a few points to noodle on:

I personally have 250 gallons running a fuge with chaeto and a couple other macros at a total size of 24x24x18 in size with a 150 watt LED grow light that I run 10 hours a day during the night. This setup grows a giant blob of chaeto that size every three weeks. I was unable to gain sustainable phosphate control just with this alone. They actually continued trending up, albiet a little slower.

The real challenge here that I found is your substrate and rocks are sequestering phosphate also. So as you reduce the phsophate in the water column the rocks and substrate will release what they have sequestered by osmosis as eventually their sequested amount will be higher than that of the water column. Until I realized this I didn't get the gravity of the situation I was really managing, the phosphate issue was far bigger than I realized. This is why I mentinoed my full routine.

That said, I would only do one thing at a time. Grow the chaeto and see what you can produce basically as fast as you can produce it. After about 4 weeks you should have a wild amount provided your grow light is good. BTW, I started with a chaetomax and while that was "okay" it didn't react well with the salt environment and lasted less than a year. I ended up getting a cheap one from Amazon for 35 dollars and not only does the chaeto grow bonkers now the light is over 3 years old and still kicking.

If by that point your phosphates don't trend down you should consider additional steps as the alternative would be them trending up further over time. If you'd like more detail on that LMK.

Awesome, thank you! Yes I have a tunze light in my fuge so we will see how it holds up. Hopefully I start seeing some macro growth soon. Appreciate you.

 

[LMSquire]

A refugium can assist with nutrient export, yes.
And some tanks thrive at phosphates over 1.

Thanks so much!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, vodka dosing is not a very effective way to reduce phosphate. GFO or lanthanum will work far better.