How do you lower phosphates?

[MightyMO]

As I am currently dealing with phosphate issues, I'd like to start a poll asking the different methods you all incorporate yo remove high phosphate numbers from your tank water???

 

[highest_tides]

less feeding and water changes is what my novice self thinks..that before chemicals

 

[Larry L]

You need a poll option for lanthanum chloride.

 

[Crabby48]

What is your phosphate numbers

 

[MightyMO]

What is your phosphate numbers

Maxed out on Hanna ulr phosphate colorimeter. .9 ppm

 

[MightyMO]

You need a poll option for lanthanum chloride.

Not sure what that is, but the option is there for ya now... lol I'm still alittle new to making polls...

 

[Larry L]

Not sure what that is, but the option is there for ya now... lol I'm still alittle new to making polls...

There are a lot of commercial phosphate-removing products (made for either aquariums or swimming pools) that contain lanthanum chloride. When you add it, it causes phosphates to precipitate, and then you use either a fine micron filter sock or your skimmer to remove the precipitates.

I wrote a dosing calculator for some of the most popular products: http://larryl.emailplus.org/fish/dosing-instructions-phosphate-removers.html

 

[Crabby48]

Maxed out on Hanna ulr phosphate colorimeter. .9 ppm

I would stay away from lanthanum chloride for now.
I would like to know why your phosphate are so high and correct that. Feeding to much, food choice, overstock, poor filtration or lack of water changes.

I would start with GFO in a bag and then go to reactor if needed. GFO can be very efficient

 

[Crabby48]

There are a lot of commercial phosphate-removing products (made for either aquariums or swimming pools) that contain lanthanum chloride. When you add it, it causes phosphates to precipitate, and then you use either a fine micron filter sock or your skimmer to remove the precipitates.

I wrote a dosing calculator for some of the most popular products: http://larryl.emailplus.org/fish/dosing-instructions-phosphate-removers.html

Thanks for sharing. I have a bottle of brightwell I been thinking to try in the skimmer.

 

[MightyMO]

Water change weekly, just changed RoDi filters... (had some tds in water change before... I feed daily frozen mysis shrimp cubes. 4 fish in a 54 gallon corner tank... Had issues with skimmer, took some corrective actions on it this past weekend. I believe my Numbers are trending down, cyano is receding now. Hopefully I'm on the correct path...

 

[MightyMO]

When I get my check, I will order some of that brightwell product... Is there a link to the dose calculator you are showing that I can add my own tank value in yo???

 

[Crabby48]

Water change weekly, just changed RoDi filters... (had some tds in water change before... I feed daily frozen mysis shrimp cubes. 4 fish in a 54 gallon corner tank... Had issues with skimmer, took some corrective actions on it this past weekend. I believe my Numbers are trending down, cyano is receding now. Hopefully I'm on the correct path...

Sounds like phosphate shouldnt be a problem. Keep up with what your doing and for quick, cheap, easy use GFO. I like BRS highcapacity.
They have a calculator for it. Start with less then recommended and test frequently until you get a feel for it. When phosphates are slowly going down GFO can remove a lot in a few days.
Don’t want to drop phosphate to fast

 

[Crabby48]

When I get my check, I will order some of that brightwell product... Is there a link to the dose calculator you are showing that I can add my own tank value in yo???

I would stay away from lanthanum chloride. My understanding is it’s better when all else fail. It is a toxin and will kill living things done wrong. That is why dosing in a skimmer or felt filters are important.

 

[MightyMO]

I would stay away from lanthanum chloride. My understanding is it’s better when all else fail. It is a toxin and will kill living things done wrong. That is why dosing in a skimmer or felt filters are important.

Ok... I'll try the brs stuff...

 

[Crabby48]

Ok... I'll try the brs stuff...

20% water changes work good when po4 is as high as yours. At a certain point it won’t lower because you are adding po4 in new water. For me .24 po4 20% water change would remove ..05 but new saltwater adds ..03 - 04.
Hope I didn’t confuse you more

I’m fine with .24 po4. Stability is more important in more import.

 

[Crabby48]

One last thing I should’ve mentioned lanthanum chloride can be dosed to maintain po4 when gfo will strip it all away.
I just don’t want you to try it with out reading a lot about it.
I recommend getting po4 down and see how much it climbs a week first

 

[Greg P]

Something else not mentioned in your poll is NO3 dosing.
If you have corals, and your Nitrates are low/non-existent, slowly dosing NO3 will drop your PO4 as the 2 are consumed.
When I say slowly, I mean very small amounts as adding too much Nitrogen too quickly will cause your PO4 to deplete so quickly that SPS will suffer, so add carefully.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You also left out some other choices that reefers use, such as aluminum oxide binders, such as Seachem Phosguard and other brands of it.

I'd also be very wary of selecting husbandry techniques based on poll results until you know the pros and cons of each choice and how it fits with the remainder of your system.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

To reinforce Randy's caution, you've not said why you think you have a problem. Nutrient control is appropriate if you have serious algae issues, but there are a lot of well-established tanks with relatively a high phosphate concentration in the water (around 1-3 ppm) that thrive with little algae issues. Part of the reason for their success is that they've a great deal of stony coral cover and a lot of herbivorous creatures that keep algae growth in check.

If you do have out of control algae growth, and wish to drop the phosphate concentration in your tank water to help control it, there's a couple of key points that you should know. If you have SPS, especially acropora, and you make a mistake with the products you've mentioned and drastically reduce a phosphate concentration in the ppm range down to 100 ppb or less that is often recommended, there's a high likelihood of killing your corals. SPS and acropora specifically adapt to environmental conditions in a tank within a couple of months, and can't tolerate rapid changes. Alkalinity is an oft-referenced parameter that SPS corals are very sensitive to, but they are also quite sensitive to dissolved nutrients including phosphate. So you need to reduce your tank water's phosphate concentration slowly over the course of a couple of months.

The second key point is that phosphate binds to calcerous substrates in a tank as calcium phosphate. The effect of that chemistry is that your tank water's phosphate concentration may not seem to budge at all even with a great deal of GFO/lanthanum chloride. Until this precipitated reservoir is depleted, and then phosphate concentrations "crash", with the attendant problems noted above.