Reducing phosphate

Captain coral · Oct 26, 2021

I have a 112 display with a 50 gallon sump. I feed 3 times a week sparingly. Octo150 classic skimmer and chaeto in a 5 gallon fuge. Nitrates are nice and low but when I cured my live rock it had 3 PPM Phosphates to begin with. Kept doing water changes and got it down to 1PPM before cycling my tank. Now it's down to .5 PPM. I have added a bag of Rowaphos to my filter sock to get it down further. What is a realistic timeline to get it down to like 0.03 PPM?

Current Parameters:
10/26 Salinity: 1.022 Ammonia: 0.0 Nitrite: 0.0 Nitrate: 2 Phosphate: 0.5 PH: 8.15 KH/Alk: 10.5 Calcium: 430 Magnesium: 1280 Temp: 78.6°F

TCoach · Oct 26, 2021

do you have any corals in the tank?

Captain coral · Oct 26, 2021

Yes, mostly softies.

Pistondog · Oct 26, 2021

You can get instant results with lanthanum chloride. Cheapest way.
Be careful using it, it produces a fine particulate. I dose it diluted into the overflow, and catching in a 5 micron sock. Drip for 8 hours, can go from 0.5 to 0.1. Then your rocks will leach more. Must use with a skimmer.
Repeat. Use gfo for maintenance, if required.

Captain coral · Oct 26, 2021

Pistondog said:
You can get instant results with lanthanum chloride. Cheapest way.
Be careful using it, it produces a fine particulate. I dose it diluted into the overflow, and catching in a 5 micron sock. Drip for 8 hours, can go from 0.5 to 0.1. Then your rocks will leach more. Must use with a skimmer.
Repeat. Use gfo for maintenance, if required.

Thank you! I just ordered some Brightwell Phosphat-E.

Pistondog · Oct 26, 2021

Captain coral said:
Thank you! I just ordered some Brightwell Phosphat-E.

That's what I use. Start with 20ml diluted into 500ml rodi. Use something like this
Denshine Disposable Enteral Nutrition Bag Feeding Bag, 1200ml Enteral Delivery Gravity/Pump Feeding Bag Set, Detachable Connector

Good luck