Problem bringing up PO4

[skuller]

Hello Guys:

I am going to describe my problem to see if any of you can give me a help.
I have serious problems bringing up the phosphates on my aquarium, my tank is a 45 gal 60x60 cm cube with only SPS on it, most of them Acroporas, but I have some Seriatoporas and montiporas that are doing not so great as the acros..
My parameters are:

Density: 1.025
No3: 5ppm
kH: 7.5-8
Ca: 420-430ppm
K: 390
Temp: 25.6 C
ORP: 470
pH: 8.3 - 8.45

I have only 3 small fishes on the tank, running Zeovit and a Skimmer rated for 220 Gal, a Deltec APF600 with a Red Dragon Pump.

The thing is, no matter how much food I throw on the tank, I am not able to bring up the phosphates, most of the corals are really light in color, and I would love to bring up that to..at least 0.04 or 0.05ppm of PO4 to see an improvement in color.
Also I would like to lower my ORP a little bit.
Not sure if the skimmer is too big for my tank, I have a small quantity of fishes, I have a big quantity of SPS corals (which I have indeed) or a combination of all of them.


Any advice on this?
What would be your approach on this?

 

[Amboss72]

I’ve always resolved this issue with the addition of fish. Fish poop equated to corals coloring up. Reefs have fish. In all my years of scuba diving I’ve yet to see an abundantly healthy reef not have fish. You could also shut the skimmer off periodically. Nature is the ultimate teacher... Look to nature

 

[Flippers4pups]

@skuller, what lights are you using and what's your intensity set at?

 

[skuller]

I’ve always resolved this issue with the addition of fish. Fish poop equated to corals coloring up. Reefs have fish. In all my years of scuba diving I’ve yet to see an abundantly healthy reef not have fish. You could also shut the skimmer off periodically. Nature is the ultimate teacher... Look to nature

The thing is that my tank is small, a 60x60 cube, so with more than 3 or 4 fishes I believe they will be stressed, I think this is a limitation of my tank? so may be I should change the skimmer to something smaller..?

 

[skuller]

@skuller, what lights are you using and what's your intensity set at?

DIY Led Lighting, with the same spectrum as the Radion G4, the light is ok believe me, the Acroporas are all colored up and some of them have amazing colors, but the light is maybe too much for the stressed corals, like Seriatoporas and Montiporas...I can see the caps are all really light in color...and the heavy lighting can be more stressful...I believe..

why, what do you suggest?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Did I miss your phosphate readings?

Okay, read them. I would lower your intensity on your lights a little.

You can add phosphate a couple of ways, one is more feeding. But if that's not helping, add a Phosphate solution to your water like Seachem's flourish phosphorus, or brightwells neo phosphorus. Follow the directions and go slow. Test after a dose and redose if needed, as phosphate can be absorbed into rock or sand. Don't over shoot your N03. Keep your N03 at 5-10ppm and phosphate at .02.

Give it some time, a week or so to see if it help with color.

 

[Amboss72]

I’m using two 36” eight bulb ati fixtures. They grow coral like crazy. I will say over the past month as the direction of the sun has changed and it’s influence in the room has increased I’m dealing with some coral bleaching too. I attribute this to the increased amount of light and the heat that accompanies it. I see the bleaching primarily in my plating montiporas. I think this may be partially based upon their growth structure and the amount of like that structure absorbs. I haven’t seen the bleaching in my other acros. The lights ramp on at 8am and are at full strength by 9:00am. They ramp down at 6pm and are completely off by 7pm. Each fixtures output is about 320 watts.

 

[Amboss72]

I failed to mention that I’ve also used Redsea’s coral colors solution which seemed to work rather well. The only downside is that you have to have all the test kits to test all of the chemicals within their system. This can be rather cumbersome.

 

[vetteguy53081]

mY GOSH, WE HAVE DOZENS OF MEMBERS TRYING TO LOWER PHOSPHATE AND WOULD LOVE TO BE IN YOUR SHOES.
NOT SURE WHAT KITS YOU ARE USING BUT I WOULD GET A SECOND OPINION FROM A TRUSTED LFS. TAKE IN A WATER SAMPLE AND SEE WHAT THEY COME WITH FOR COMPARISON

 

[skuller]

Did I miss your phosphate readings?

Okay, read them. I would lower your intensity on your lights a little.

You can add phosphate a couple of ways, one is more feeding. But if that's not helping, add a Phosphate solution to your water like Seachem's flourish phosphorus, or brightwells neo phosphorus..

Give it some time, a week or so to see if it help with color.

The reading is always 0.00 with Hanna LR Checker, thanks for the advice Flippers, the thing is, I already made the math and I will need tons of bottles to keep the phosphates stable to..at least 0.04, and that is a lot of money, I already tried with Phosphate TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) but I am really scared of what a chemical like TSP can do to the corals, since nobody uses it and I don't have a real experience of anyone dosing TSP regularly..I am really scared of bleeching my acros.
Also, I was able to bring the phosphates up to 0.09 for a day dosing TSP, then suddenly 2 days after that PO4s were again at absolute 0.00..and in that "fast drop" to 0 a lot of corals were affected.

Lowering the intensity of light is a good one, I will try that very slowly..

 

[skuller]

mY GOSH, WE HAVE DOZENS OF MEMBERS TRYING TO LOWER PHOSPHATE AND WOULD LOVE TO BE IN YOUR SHOES.

And I'd love to be in their's :-( There are a lot of corals which I can't have, because of this some Zoas and other LPSs and SPS corals die as soon as I introduce them, however the most difficult acroporas are more beautiful than ever, but I know I am in the thin line..if I don't heavy feed them in a week they start to lose color.

What I have confirmed over the past months is that, no matter how much I feed or how heavy, my Hanna always reads 0, I also took some samples of my water to the LFSs here in Argentina, all of them read it 0.
In the case of ORP, when I heavy feed the aquarium the ORP goes automatically down 5 points, lets say from 465 to 460 or 459...then after a few minutes or an hour, it goes up again to 465.
Same with the phosphate readings, I tested the water at the same time when feeding and dosing TSP..I got 0.04 once...then after a few hours...0.00 again.

 

[ZaneTer]

The reading is always 0.00 with Hanna LR Checker, thanks for the advice Flippers, the thing is, I already made the math and I will need tons of bottles to keep the phosphates stable to..at least 0.04, and that is a lot of money, I already tried with Phosphate TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) but I am really scared of what a chemical like TSP can do to the corals, since nobody uses it and I don't have a real experience of anyone dosing TSP regularly..I am really scared of bleeching my acros.
Also, I was able to bring the phosphates up to 0.09 for a day dosing TSP, then suddenly 2 days after that PO4s were again at absolute 0.00..and in that "fast drop" to 0 a lot of corals were affected.

Lowering the intensity of light is a good one, I will try that very slowly..

What are you talking about that nobody uses TSP? The chemistry room is littered with people using it including myself.

The fast drop is for two reasons:
Your sand and rock is adsorbing it, this actually happens VERY rapidly within about 2hrs.
Your bacteria and coral are absorbing the phosphate in the water because they need it.

Hell, I have dumped in a full 1ppm in my tank with no ill effects only to find it was completely gone the next day. Just keep adding it everyday and after around 2 weeks it should be nice and steady.

 

[KrisReef]

Your Hanna is broken?
Next water change, add a tiny pinch of TSP into a gallon of your tank water and test with the Hanna ULR. I cannot believe that you don't get .01 ppb from a tank you are feeding fish in. I've seen a batch of bad P reagents, and I've seen errors in performing the test that gave false readings, and I've seen P levels that instantly changed the test water to a beautiful blue that pegged the meter, but only on freshly mixed saltwater have I seen zero ppb. You should detect some in your system, imo.

 

[skuller]

What are you talking about that nobody uses TSP? The chemistry room is littered with people using it including myself...

Hell, I have dumped in a full 1ppm in my tank with no ill effects only to find it was completely gone the next day. Just keep adding it everyday and after around 2 weeks it should be nice and steady.

Hi ZaneTer...so you are saying you use TSP on a daily basis to provide PO4s to your tank?
Did you notice anything wrong or problem with colors on SPS or polyp extension?

That is soo good to know

Also, are you dosing by hand (drops or ml?) or with a dosing pump? Did you notice better health with the show of phosphate on your tank?

 

[motortrendz]

When mine gets stuck at zero. I use a phosphorus additive like flourish. Just a small amount to get it up to detectable

 

[UCF Alum]

I had the same problem a month ago. Some of my Acros were not looking well because I was reading zero phosphates for two months. Go out and buy some Seachem flourish phosphorus and dose your tank per the instructions. It will take a few days to work but you will immediately start reading phosphates. I have not had to add that product after three days of use.

PS- I used my dosing pump to add it throughout the day in smaller increments over a period of several days

 

[PatW]

And I'd love to be in their's :-( There are a lot of corals which I can't have, because of this some Zoas and other LPSs and SPS corals die as soon as I introduce them, however the most difficult acroporas are more beautiful than ever, but I know I am in the thin line..if I don't heavy feed them in a week they start to lose color.

What I have confirmed over the past months is that, no matter how much I feed or how heavy, my Hanna always reads 0, I also took some samples of my water to the LFSs here in Argentina, all of them read it 0.
In the case of ORP, when I heavy feed the aquarium the ORP goes automatically down 5 points, lets say from 465 to 460 or 459...then after a few minutes or an hour, it goes up again to 465.
Same with the phosphate readings, I tested the water at the same time when feeding and dosing TSP..I got 0.04 once...then after a few hours...0.00 again.

I buy analytical grade trisodium phosphate. I make a stock solution of 2 tbs of trisodium phosphate crystals into 1 gallon of 0 tds RODI. I have a 300 gallon SPS dominant tank. I dose about a tablespoon of stock solution to keep my phosphates above 0. I do not dose when phosphates are over .03 ppm. I believe that dosing has really helped my corals.

 

[skuller]

I buy analytical grade trisodium phosphate. I make a stock solution of 2 tbs of trisodium phosphate crystals into 1 gallon of 0 tds RODI. I have a 300 gallon SPS dominant tank. I dose about a tablespoon of stock solution to keep my phosphates above 0. I do not dose when phosphates are over .03 ppm. I believe that dosing has really helped my corals.

Thank you PatW..thanks guys for the help.
Will try to set up the dosing pump to dose TSP daily and see what happens when phosphates shows up!

 

[PatW]

You can use a dosing pump. I hand dose. I don’t think that anything cares about the nutrient swings. My nitrates are pretty constant. Oddly enough, the phosphates move around in conc quite a bit. I guess sometimes the stuff in the tank decides it wants phosphates and gobbles them up. The phosphates are low enough to cause fluctuations. At least, that is my guess.

 

[skuller]

I was thinking the same thing...there shouldn't be a problem going from 0.01 to 0.04 and then back again to 0.01 right?


I don't have the ULR test, but I know I must be on 0.02 or something like that..because of the error on the LR test, I found that..if the PO4 goes below 0.04 it is a complete 0.00 for Hanna LR (because of this error), I never got 0.02, 3 nor 0.01.