Phosphate spike

[RDReefNYC]

One week ago my nitrate was 6.8 and my phosphate was 0.21. My tank is 15G and I did a 3 gallon water change. When I tested this week my nitrate was at 11.3 but my phosphate had jumped to 0.52.

Haven’t changed feeding at all but I did turn over/clean a lot of the sandbed, which had been relatively stagnant for a month or two (aside from 1 conch and a few nassarius moving around) during the WC. I also had a turbo snail die this week. I pulled him out after noticing he was in the same spot for a day. By the smell he was definitely dead. Though he was not rotting for long before I got him out of there.

Is the dead snail the likely cause of the phosphate spike? Or kicking up the sandbed after leaving it alone for too long? Or perhaps a combination.

 

[BlueNem]

Hi

I would say a combination of the two situations is the cause of the spike. A large WC should solve the issue.


Regards,

 

[Dan_P]

One week ago my nitrate was 6.8 and my phosphate was 0.21. My tank is 15G and I did a 3 gallon water change. When I tested this week my nitrate was at 11.3 but my phosphate had jumped to 0.52.

Haven’t changed feeding at all but I did turn over/clean a lot of the sandbed, which had been relatively stagnant for a month or two (aside from 1 conch and a few nassarius moving around) during the WC. I also had a turbo snail die this week. I pulled him out after noticing he was in the same spot for a day. By the smell he was definitely dead. Though he was not rotting for long before I got him out of there.

Is the dead snail the likely cause of the phosphate spike? Or kicking up the sandbed after leaving it alone for too long? Or perhaps a combination.

Hard to say what’s going on when you only test weekly. Is the aquarium filtered?