Phosphate

[StudentOfTheReef]

What’s the best way to bring phosphate levels down?

 

[Jackal799]

What’s the best way to bring phosphate levels down?

I reused old sand/ live rock on my current tank. My phosphates were at 3.9! I used lanthanum chloride slowly dripped into a filter sock to bring them down to .3ish. Then switched over to rowaphos. Been maintaining at .08 with rowaphos. Depends on how high your phosphates are but as long as you drip into a 5 micron sock and go slow you should be fine. I have tangs and suffered no damage doing it this way. If you do decide to use lanthanum chloride please read up on it but it is very very effective for phosphates

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

If you need to bring it down a lot I would use rowaphos or something similar. If you need to drop it only slightly I use a liquid remover like phosphate-e

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What’s the best way to bring phosphate levels down?

How high? The answer of how and whether it is desirable depends on the answer.

Some great tanks have phosphate at 1 ppm, and so you may not need to do anything.

This has more:

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/randy’s-thoughts-on-nutrient-target-ranges.1087/

 

[PPBlimpy]

Need to know tank size and phosphate levels to make an educated suggestion.

 

[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 by with phosphates at over .9 and nitrates at 40, I guess I must be. I have a protein skimmer, and just recently purchase 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?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

No need to start duplicate discussions with the same post.