Phosphates are zeroing out every day, a few specific questions

[reef lover]

Thanks for compounding the thread for us!
First i would turn your skimmer back on. They remove alot of dos which is why your water is browning, and they dont remove much for po.
I would also put gac back in that will help with the water clarity and again wont bother po.
Do u have a tank shot so we can see what might be using it up?

 

[living_tribunal]

Thanks for compounding the thread for us!
First i would turn your skimmer back on. They remove alot of dos which is why your water is browning, and they dont remove much for po.
I would also put gac back in that will help with the water clarity and again wont bother po.
Do u have a tank shot so we can see what might be using it up?

I can get one. Give me about an hour so the daylights can go on.

 

[MTBake]

Following.

I've been dealing with the same issue with my tank. Uses up nutrients like a sponge. Dose to 60ppb phosphorus and it's back down to 8ppb the next morning. Same goes for nitrates. Dose to 10ppm and its back to 0 the next day. Kinda sick of dosing these. I have never had this issue with any of my past tanks. Quite the opposite in fact. This is the first tank I set up with dry rock. That's literally the only difference compared to past tank.

Edit;

Same concern as the OP as far as maintaining nutrient levels. Dealt with dinos twice in this tank. I DO NOT want to fight them again.

 

[living_tribunal]

Following.

I've been dealing with the same issue with my tank. Uses up nutrients like a sponge. Dose to 60ppb phosphorus and it's back down to 8ppb the next morning. Same goes for nitrates. Dose to 10ppm and its back to 0 the next day. Kinda sick of dosing these. I have never had this issue with any of my past tanks. Quite the opposite in fact. This is the first tank I set up with dry rock. That's literally the only difference compared to past tank.

I’m really beginning to think this is the case. Something I’ll shed light on later and may be a component of this was I Turkey basted the snot out of my rocks last night. There were a lot of diatoms (expected) with many nitrogen bubbles from the diatom photosynthesis.

When I turkey basted, there was like sand, or some other material, that flew off all of the rocks. It almost seemed like detritus even. When I was done turkey basting, all sunk in pieces of the rock were bleach white. Almost as if they had been collecting detritus in which was feeding diatoms and some turf algae which might have been soaking up the phosphates.

This is a stretch but something funky is going on. I should be able to get those pictures soon.

If this is the case, I’m wondering if the bound phosphates are accessible and or I need a slow yet steady phosphate drip throughout the day.

Phosphate that goes in, has to come out somehow, it doesn’t disappear. So where is it going?

 

[Grigs]

I do prefer brightwell for nutrients for sure. Much easier over all.

I think my aim with this thread though is to really figure out what in the world is going on.

I’ve been dosing phosphate like crazy and it’s had no impact other than feeding whatever is sucking my nutrients.

I’ve really been stressing on how I should approach this situation. I can’t seem to find anything similar online either.

My PO4 and NO3 were constantly very low to non-existent until I got rid of the dino bloom. Now that I'm past it I find myself using Phosphate-E to keep it low until things balance back out. Ironically, my chaeto is browning out, even with nutrients and using ChaetoGrow. It's always something

 

[living_tribunal]

My PO4 and NO3 were constantly very low to non-existent until I got rid of the dino bloom. Now that I'm past it I find myself using Phosphate-E to keep it low until things balance back out. Ironically, my chaeto is browning out, even with nutrients and using ChaetoGrow. It's always something

I don’t think running my fuge during this is smart. It just removes any available phosphates. There isn’t Dino currently in my tanks so I’m not sure what’s removing them but I do know i want them available to ensure Dino doesn’t kick up.

 

[Grigs]

It's probably the diatoms sucking it all up. I'd give the blackout and bacteria route a shot. Worked great for me

 

[living_tribunal]

It's probably the diatoms sucking it all up. I'd give the blackout and bacteria route a shot. Worked great for me

Are diatoms capable of sucking that much phosphate out of the water?

 

[living_tribunal]

Thanks for compounding the thread for us!
First i would turn your skimmer back on. They remove alot of dos which is why your water is browning, and they dont remove much for po.
I would also put gac back in that will help with the water clarity and again wont bother po.
Do u have a tank shot so we can see what might be using it up?

So here are some current snaps of the tank, it’s still a little blue so my apologies for that.

A did turkey baste a lot of diatoms with nitrogen bubbles off the rock last night. The diatom bloom was heavy and I can send a follow up ss of what the tank looked like today. Also, this is happening in both my display and frag tank. The frag tank has been running for longer and doesn’t have any diatoms. It’s a completely separate system.

Notice the basically bleached sunken pieces of the rock I found after turkey basting.

Here is my sump, as you can see I have removed basically all Chaeto and tang heaven. There is just a pod mat in there for my amphipods. One thing worth noting, I found a ton of tang heaven in my display while turkey basting. I’m thinking that tang heaven under two hydra26s could definitely pull a ton of phosphate out of the water. There was almost a golf ball sized amount.

 

[living_tribunal]

Here is my frag tank as well. The issue is occurring in both tanks. My frag tank only runs a little hob power filter with a carbon packet, nothing else.

The interesting thing here is there is some turf algae/cyano. My concern is that it’s sucking up all of the phosphate before other stuff can get to it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do you know if it is processed any differently by corals, biodiversity, and potentially binding to rock when compared to phosphorous?

Also, how many ppm do you add at a time?

Phosphorus is not a thing in our tanks. The only forms are all phosphates, organic and inorganic.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have another thread that started to become focused on this. Thought I’d make a specific thead however to hone in on what’s going.

The situation:
Phosphates are zeroing out every day in both my display and frag tanks. I’m currently running skimmerless, no GFO, no carbon, no photoperiod at all on fuge, removed 95% of my macro fauna, feeding corals aminos every day, feeding fish 3 times a day, and dosing .02ppm of phosphate every day.

My goal:
Have some measurable level of phosphate and to determine the baseline daily phosphate addition required to keep something in there.

My concerns:
I’ve had Dino once and it was by far the worst thing I’ve experienced in this hobby. I really want there to be some phosphates in the tank for my biodiversity to stay on top of the food chain to prevent another Dino bloom. I refuse to allow my tank to go extended periods of time without phosphates and won’t “let it ride out”.

However, since going skimmerless, the water has started to look disgusting in my display. It is starting to become murky and has a brown tint to it.

My questions:
1.) My predominant theory is that the rock and sand are soaking up the phosphates. There was a study where rock and sand could bind up to 52ppm of phosphates per lb. Has anyone experienced this specific situation? How did you handle it?

2.) If #1 is true, is that phosphate accessible by the dioversity in my tank? Whatever is sucking up my phosphates, it’s doing so very fast, to the tune of ~.005ppm every two hours.

3.) How would you approach this situation with everything I’ve outlined and also keeping in mind my current regiment? Should I continue to dose phosphates and running skimmerless?

4.) What are some other things that could soak up the phosphates to this degree other than my rock?

I would really appreciate ANY help, this whole situation is pretty frustrating. I’m just really scared of getting Dino again and crashing the diversity in my tank.

number 1 is true and bound phosphate is not bioavailable when bound. I’d add a higher daily dose till you see free phosphate that you want.

 

[living_tribunal]

Phosphorus is not a thing in our tanks. The only forms are all phosphates, organic and inorganic.

number 1 is true and bound phosphate is not bioavailable when bound. I’d add a higher daily dose till you see free phosphate that you want.

Would maybe .02 twice a day for a total of .04 with aggressive feeding and no fuge be appropriate and just scale up until I reach an equilibrium?

I take it there is no concern of the rock leaching phosphate as well?

 

[amazongb]

Do you have any fish in the frag tank? How many fish in the display tank?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It may be adequate, but I’d personally dose more and more until I saw a value the next day, even 0.01 ppm.

 

[living_tribunal]

Do you have any fish in the frag tank? How many fish in the display tank?

No fish in the frag tank (it’s a qt frag tank)

Two clowns in the display with a mccoskers wrasse and tailspot blenny joining them in a month

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Rock both absorbs and releases phosphate, depending on the amount on the rock and the amount in the water. It effectively buffers against rises and falls in phosphate.

 

[living_tribunal]

It may be adequate, but I’d personally dose more and more until I saw a value the next day, even 0.01 ppm.

Sounds like a plan, I’ll start at .04 and scale up until I reach equilibrium.

What’s the max ppm dosage you’d feel comfortable delivering at a single time?

 

[living_tribunal]

Rock both absorbs and releases phosphate, depending on the amount on the rock and the amount in the water. It effectively buffers against rises and falls in phosphate.

That’s very helpful, excellent information.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sounds like a plan, I’ll start at .04 and scale up until I reach equilibrium.

What’s the max ppm dosage you’d feel comfortable delivering at a single time?

Depends on the goal, but I’d keep ramping it up as long as you detect no phosphate and do not visually see any problem in the tank (like algae going wild).