Persistently High Phosphate

[JillB]

I have been battling high phosphate for a year. I use the Hanna Marine Master tester and the reagents are new. My readings are always .9 which I believe is as high as they will go (nitrates are about 40)....my tank is 2 1/2 years old - it's a 100 gallon AIO...I make my own RO/DI water and use Red Sea salt....at the moment I have only 4 fish (clown, flame angel, coral beauty and melanurus wrasse)...all happy and healthy. I feed about 1/4 teaspoon of a mix of TDO pellets, freeze dried mysis shrimp and flakes once a day. Every other day or so I give them about 1/6 of a cube of frozen food. I don't think I am over feeding but with phosphates at over .9 and nitrates at 40, I guess I must be. I have a protein skimmer, and just recently purchased an IM MiniMax Pro Media Reactor. Last week, by accident I over dosed Red Sea NO3:PO4-X and caused a small bacteria bloom...I did a 30% water change immediately and added a bubbler until the water cleared...fish seemed totally unaffected. Tested the water again and it is STILL at .9.....I am at my wits end. What can I do?

 

[CHSUB]

High po4 is not necessarily a problem? What is the problem?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

NOPOX doesn’t do much for phosphate. If you want to lower it, other means will typically be necessary.

 

[BryanM]

There are a lot of users that thaw and rinse their frozen food to help with phosphate control.

And I think you're underfeeding personally...

GFO or dosing lanthanum chloride are your go to options... Though just as a gut check I would be inclined to take a water sample to the LFS and have them confirm.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Rowaphos is my go to but be very careful about too much, too quickly. The shock of dropping too quick is way worse than the high levels.

 

[JillB]

High po4 is not necessarily a problem? What is the problem?

But if I want to have coral someday, isn't high phosphate an issue?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

But if I want to have coral someday, isn't high phosphate an issue?

I show a fabulous tank in this article with 1 ppm phosphate:

Randy’s Thoughts on Nutrient Target Ranges

Thoughts on Nutrient Target Ranges by Randy Holmes-Farley Almost nothing in the world of reef aquarium chemistry causes as much discussion as selecting and maintaining ranges for nitrate and phosphate. Some aquarists want low targets, some want...

www.reef2reef.com

From it:


Figure 1. A very high nutrient system maintained by Richard Ross, with nitrate sometimes above 100 ppm and phosphate above 1 ppm

 

[JillB]

Rowaphos

I'm using PhosBan by Two Little Fishes in my reactor...is it ok?

 

[JillB]

I show a fabulous tank in this article with 1 ppm phosphate:

Randy’s Thoughts on Nutrient Target Ranges

Thoughts on Nutrient Target Ranges by Randy Holmes-Farley Almost nothing in the world of reef aquarium chemistry causes as much discussion as selecting and maintaining ranges for nitrate and phosphate. Some aquarists want low targets, some want...

www.reef2reef.com

From it:


Figure 1. A very high nutrient system maintained by Richard Ross, with nitrate sometimes above 100 ppm and phosphate above 1 ppm

wow! I have tried to get Zoa's and mushrooms going and have never had any luck and those are supposed to be "easy" and forgiving...they never grew and eventually died. Clearly I am doing something wrong

 

[Dom]

I have been battling high phosphate for a year. I use the Hanna Marine Master tester and the reagents are new. My readings are always .9 which I believe is as high as they will go (nitrates are about 40)....my tank is 2 1/2 years old - it's a 100 gallon AIO...I make my own RO/DI water and use Red Sea salt....at the moment I have only 4 fish (clown, flame angel, coral beauty and melanurus wrasse)...all happy and healthy. I feed about 1/4 teaspoon of a mix of TDO pellets, freeze dried mysis shrimp and flakes once a day. Every other day or so I give them about 1/6 of a cube of frozen food. I don't think I am over feeding but with phosphates at over .9 and nitrates at 40, I guess I must be. I have a protein skimmer, and just recently purchased an IM MiniMax Pro Media Reactor. Last week, by accident I over dosed Red Sea NO3:PO4-X and caused a small bacteria bloom...I did a 30% water change immediately and added a bubbler until the water cleared...fish seemed totally unaffected. Tested the water again and it is STILL at .9.....I am at my wits end. What can I do?

This is what I've learned battling Phosphates...

The tank in question is FOWLR. Total water volume is 135 gallons. It contains about 65 pounds of live rock and about 40 pounds of crushed coral substrate.

As a new tank (post cycle), there were no phosphates (PO4). But with the addition of 3 clowns and a Fox Face and all the feeding that goes with them, PO4 began to show up. But, this didn't happen over night. It took 4-6 weeks before PO4 began showing up in my weekly tests.

The first thing I looked at was my feeding schedule. It never "felt" like I was over-feeding; boy was I wrong!

Installed in this system is a Santa Monica Turf 4 scrubber. Once it became productive (algae growth), PO4 leveled off for about two weeks and then continued to rise. Right there, I knew that the turf scrubber wasn't keeping up with the feeding.

I cut feeding to 1/2 and set up a Phosguard reactor. Aluminum from the Phosguard wasn't a real concern as the tank is FOWLR. Also, once PO4 is under control, a healthy water change will correct that.

Once I got it down to something like .04, I turned off the reactor. But in less than a week, PO4 began to rise. How? I didn't change feeding.

I couldn't cut back on feeding again. The fish were still hungry enough where the Fox Face was grazing algae all day.

And then there was the live rock.

I learned that live rock will absorb PO4. And it isn't until the live rock is saturated with PO4, that it will then begin to appear in your water.

I put the reactor back on to cover PO4 leaching from the rock, back in to the water.

I also understand that you can not have a higher PO4 value in your water than in your rock. Live rock leeching PO4 will stop once the amount of PO4 in the rock is equal to the PO4 in the water. I believe this is called being in equilibrium.

A picture of your tank would be helpful.

 

[JillB]

High po4 is not necessarily a problem? What is the problem?

I thought if I lowered the phosphate and nitrates, I'd get less of those crusty algae spots on the glass and might have better luck keeping coral alive and thriving

 

[JillB]

This is what I've learned battling Phosphates...

The tank in question is FOWLR. Total water volume is 135 gallons. It contains about 65 pounds of live rock and about 40 pounds of crushed coral substrate.

As a new tank (post cycle), there were no phosphates (PO4). But with the addition of 3 clowns and a Fox Face and all the feeding that goes with them, PO4 began to show up. But, this didn't happen over night. It took 4-6 weeks before PO4 began showing up in my weekly tests.

The first thing I looked at was my feeding schedule. It never "felt" like I was over-feeding; boy was I wrong!

Installed in this system is a Santa Monica Turf 4 scrubber. Once it became productive (algae growth), PO4 leveled off for about two weeks and then continued to rise. Right there, I knew that the turf scrubber wasn't keeping up with the feeding.

I cut feeding to 1/2 and set up a Phosguard reactor. Aluminum from the Phosguard wasn't a real concern as the tank is FOWLR. Also, once PO4 is under control, a healthy water change will correct that.

Once I got it down to something like .04, I turned off the reactor. But in less than a week, PO4 began to rise. How? I didn't change feeding.

I couldn't cut back on feeding again. The fish were still hungry enough where the Fox Face was grazing algae all day.

And then there was the live rock.

I learned that live rock will absorb PO4. And it isn't until the live rock is saturated with PO4, that it will then begin to appear in your water.

I put the reactor back on to cover PO4 leaching from the rock, back in to the water.

I also understand that you can not have a higher PO4 value in your water than in your rock. Live rock leeching PO4 will stop once the amount of PO4 in the rock is equal to the PO4 in the water. I believe this is called being in equilibrium.

A picture of your tank would be helpful.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I'm using PhosBan by Two Little Fishes in my reactor...is it ok?

Yep that's OK to use.

Big misnomer that you are in trouble with those levels. It's not bad, but could be better! Go slow and follow the instructions. Less is more with any PO4 reducing media as it has potential to VERY quickly strip all PO4 out of the water which does 10x more damage than just high levels.

RE: PO4 levels.

Poster above mentioned rockwork and sand. That is 100% correct that PO4 will take awhile to register in tests until the PO4 has become fully bound to to the CaCO3 - aka rockwork and sand aka coral skeletons - and it's usually dangerously LOW levels that get people in trouble with problems like dinoflagellates. In your case, you have an excess and that usually stems from overfeeding OR not having enough organisms to actively consume the PO4. Corals are your best friend in maintaining not only PO4 and NO3, but all the other inputs going into the overall system. FOWLR systems are notorious for this as there isn't corals to consume the nutrients created by the fish and excess food.

 

[CHSUB]

I thought if I lowered the phosphate and nitrates, I'd get less of those crusty algae spots on the glass and might have better luck keeping coral alive and thriving

Algae is still going to grow! Corals do prefer lower nutrients, however there are many that tolerate high levels.

Tank pictured look nice…go get a bunch of leather corals from the LFS.

Zoa's and mushrooms

These corals are more difficult than hardy leathers like Kenya Tree and Spaghetti leathers.

 

[Dom]

What is your husbandry routine?

 

[X-37B]

Do you have a pic of your system?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm using PhosBan by Two Little Fishes in my reactor...is it ok?

It’s a fine brand of GFO as are many others.

 

[Uncle99]

I’d check my RODI to see if phosphate is present here an contributing to your elevated results.

My city water has some phosphate in it, so over time, I can run .6-.7ppm, and with no ill effects.

I’d check the foods for phosphate %.

Your high number is not a bad thing and if I was doing all softies, I might like that number.

There are only three ways to lower phosphate, lower the amount going in, mopping up with some GFO, and water changes.

 

[BryanM]

I thought if I lowered the phosphate and nitrates, I'd get less of those crusty algae spots on the glass and might have better luck keeping coral alive and thriving

This is a huge misconception in the hobby, and gets a lot of people in trouble. Even tanks with 1-5 nitrates and .03 phosphates grows algae on the glass... There's no way to avoid it, unless your tank can't grow anything, which is clearly not desirable.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

This is a huge misconception in the hobby, and gets a lot of people in trouble. Even tanks with 1-5 nitrates and .03 phosphates grows algae on the glass... There's no way to avoid it, unless your tank can't grow anything, which is clearly not desirable.

Definitely invest in a GOOD algae scraper and some microfibre cloths. You will be cleaning that glass every other day for the life of the tank lol.