PER ICP: PO4 0.45! and P 145.7!!

[ADAM]

So things just haven't looked right lately so I sent in an ICP to ATI. The results all look somewhat OK with the exception of my Phosphate ..... 0.45!!?? (not a typo 0.45 not 0.045) also shows Phosphorus at 145.7!! with an ideal value of just under 14!

What in the world would cause these numbers to be so high? There has been a little cyano here and there but not to where I thought these results would've been possible. Ive read a couple articles on phosphate but I think this could be a little beyond what I can personally compute since about all the articles say that phosphorus (P) isn't in the water......

 

[rkpetersen]

It's quite possible, if you feed well and don't use a phosphate remover, don't do frequent water changes, and/or don't have an algae fuge or scrubber. It comes in with food, mostly. Also some medications if you dose directly into the display tank. Fortunately phosphate is easy to get rid of with GFO or lanthanum.

 

[ADAM]

It's quite possible, if you feed well and don't use a phosphate remover, don't do frequent water changes, and/or don't have an algae fuge or scrubber. It comes in with food, mostly. Also some medications if you dose directly into the display tank. Fortunately phosphate is easy to get rid of with GFO or lanthanum.

Normally PO4 runs .04 and has been as high as 0.1 in the past. Never this high tho. I noticed there was another high PO4 thread where they had unusually high PO4 and had narrowed it down to over feeding Reef Roids. However in the opening post they mentioned adding Reef Complete Ca additive. This got my attention as I too have been dosing Reef Complete to raise my calcium a little without changing my 2 part dosing schedule. Reef Complete Raises Calcium and also helps maintains Mag and Strontium. Odd to me that we both have been dosing Reef Complete and now have high PO4 issues around the same time, very well a coincidence tho.
I don’t feed that much either, Neptune CO Diet in the AFS about 3/4 full will last 5-6 week, 1-2 TLF Nori sheets a week,
As for Bio Filters; wet skim (sweet tea color skimmate) Brightwell Brick, 10+/- 1” ceramic spheres, and for chemical filtering I use Rowaphos and Reef Spec carbon (carbon used very rarely) just removed 100g of Rowaphos a week ago once PO4 had fallen below 0.10, not sure what caused the sudden jump but I intend to find out.

 

[rkpetersen]

Odd that you would have a sudden jump like that.
You could always dilute some Reef Complete and test it for phosphate.
This will seem like out of left field, but have you calibrated a pH probe recently?
Spilling even a little bit of the standard solution into the tank will raise phosphate, as it contains phosphoric acid.

 

[UCF Alum]

@ADAM
One question-

How does the tank look?

 

[ADAM]

Been a little under the weather sorry for the delay in reponses.

Odd that you would have a sudden jump like that.
You could always dilute some Reef Complete and test it for phosphate.
This will seem like out of left field, but have you calibrated a pH probe recently?
Spilling even a little bit of the standard solution into the tank will raise phosphate, as it contains phosphoric acid.

Havent calibrated anything like that lately. I was planning on testing a small amount in the next water change leftovers. Good to know on the calibration solution.

@UCF Alum
There really was not a huge difference in appearances. The corals all looked a little dull and upset the last couple of days, however I was thinking it was due to the sudden jump in calcium/alk ratios although the additions were done in small increments. The small amount of visual cyano grew exponentially in a 1-2 days period tho.

This afternoon I did a 20% water change and have had 200g of Rowaphos running for near 48hrs now. At last check a little while after the water change the PO4 was less than 0.10 so hopefully no large amounts will resurface. Going to leave the Rowa on until tomorrow as there is still a bit of visual Cyano on the rock crevices. Tomorrow I plan to replace the Rowa with the recommended amount for the water volume and continue to monitor the phos daily until the visual Cyano is gone.

 

[steallife904]

heck mine just came back with Phosphours at 175.2 and phosphate at .54 LOL. have done about 50% of a water change and ordered some gfo. Im just going to throw some in a mesh bag and drop in filter sock. do not want it to decrease super fast. once I get it down I will probably run my phosban reactor again.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Mine came back with 0.22ppm phosphate and I’ve lost several sps corals. The others went dark brown and stn badly....

I had gone to town with food for the weeks leading up to the losses, and was using the wrong Hannah reagents for testing

The final mistake was taking my skimmer offline...Bam! The “happening” had begun.

Once I got my test results in, I got my skimmer online and put my tank on a diet. Phosphate down to 0.02ppm and my brown corals are showing green shimmer....

 

[ADAM]

So I have continued the Rowaphos and levels of PO4 appeared to remain between the .03 and 0.1 and could barley see a spec of cyano visually. Tuesday night I shut the reactor off to see if the level would increase quickly. By Wednesday evening the PO4 was still between the .03 and 0.1, per Salifert, and still no visual cyano. So then I dosed 25ml of the Reef Complete in a 100gal system to see if my PO4 would rise due to the addition as I suspected. Thursday evening when I got in from work there was very noticeable cyano on the rock work and sand. In checking the PO4 last night it was not quite .25!

Im not totally saying that the Reef Complete itself has PO4 but rather asking what in this additive would cause PO4 to be released into the water column?