Should I give up on testing phosphates?

New&no clue

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My phosphates have been high for 7 weeks and nothing I do seems to keep them down. At the start of January I tested my water and noticed my phosphates were high at .48. I had just fed reef roids and heard those can increase it so I waited a couple days and tested again, now I was at .54. Now I start to do some research and see what I can do to lower these. It takes a couple days and I test again and I'm at .90 :eek:. I panic now and do several large water changes over the next couple days and it drops down to .36, but just three days later it is back up to .46. It goes between .46 and .35 but I can't get it lower. I have tried the following things without much success:

1. Started by doing several large water changes over a week period- was able to drop it down to .36, hasn't gone above .46 after the water change.
2. Added phosguard into my sump, one bag in a media cup where the filter socks are, one bag in my return chamber
3. Cut feeding back; feeding less frozen food, rinsing frozen food when feeding, taking Nori out and night and not letting it sit in tank, reducing the feeding of reef roids.
4. Tested RODI water and fresh salt mix to see if high phosphates are starting there, didn't see any.
5. Cleaned bubble trap in sump, started changing filter socks every two days, cleaned covers on my power heads.

So at the end of this I'm left wondering should I stop trying and just let it be high. I thankfully have not see a huge algae outbreak. I did get several patches of GHA that showed up, but I just manually removed them without much effort. I do have a very hefty cuc, 100+ assorted snails, 50+ assorted hermit crabs, a tuxedo urchin, and a large crew of bristle worms. The majority of my corals are open and happy. Except for a torch that recently melted:(, a toadstool that started to shed and now wont open up, and a duncan that has been closed forever.

Is there anything else I could try, or anything that I might be missing?

Below are tank details and FTS of DT and Sump.

8458D579-BDF2-4075-9041-AE72E1ADC55F.jpeg

3F2C28C8-5EE3-4925-8FDD-B98E8CB7D52D.jpeg

676AFB59-4653-4C6A-8908-4252524197A7.jpeg

TANK PARAMETERS
Nitrates: 15
Alkaline: 7.3
Calcium: 430
Magnesium:1280
Phosphates: .35
Salinity: 1.025
Temperature:79

TANK SPECS
Red Sea Reefer 350
(2)Current USA IC Pro lights
(4) T5 lights- 2 Blue+, 2 Coral+
(2) 1050 power heads- Current USA(with covers)
(2) 700 gph power heads- Aqueon(with covers)
1050 return pump-Current USA
 

X-37B

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What are you using to check phosphate.
If your using phosgaurd and the levels are not comming down I suspect test kit issues.
My experience with phosgaurd is to use 1/2 or less of the amount they say to use. It will drop your p04 quick.
When I used it in my 120 during cycle my p04 was .6ish. A small bag around 1/4 cup lowered po4 to <.08 in 3-4 days. Make sure you monitor it daily and have an accurate test kit. I use Hanna ulr.
When your p04 is where you want it remove the phosgaurd.
 

Reef AquaCult

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It looks like you have a large amount of sand which is likely a huge nutrient sink, storing a lot of phosphate. Are you doing any sand bed maintenance? You can try phsphate Rx or other lanthanum chloride product, its highly effective. Might take a while though based on your elevated levels. Definitely getting some some detritus out of the sand bed will help as well as chemical removal.
 

Technewb

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Im having same issue but not high as yours. Was getting po4 @.15, used gfo and next day went down to .1, checked the next day back up to .18 , this was going on for 3 weeks with some water changes. So i used a ton of gfo and it dropped to .03, some corals were not happy for a day. Stopped feeding frozen food everyday and fed more flakes/pellets but only enough for fishes to eat them and not float around tank. Now all is good around .05. My last 3 days po4 was .05, .07, .05. Still using some gfo but at least it last more than 1 day now. Was changing gfo every morning. For me I think its something about frozen food and too much that kept my po4 up high. I check po4 more than alk. Good luck.
 

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You could always try a GFO reactor. Looks like you have room for a refugium too if you wanted to place the skimmer in chamber 1 and refugium in chamber 2 in the sump. That could help too.
 

LadyTang2

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Just beware should you take aggressive measures to reduce phosphate, you do not want to bottom out (go to 0 phos) then you will get dinos and it will 10 times worse than anything your dealing with now. Patience, yes even more.
 
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It looks like you have a large amount of sand which is likely a huge nutrient sink, storing a lot of phosphate. Are you doing any sand bed maintenance? You can try phsphate Rx or other lanthanum chloride product, its highly effective. Might take a while though based on your elevated levels. Definitely getting some some detritus out of the sand bed will help as well as chemical removal.

I have a diamond goby who moves the sand all over the place. I have never had such white sand. Any time there is a little build up he is there within the day to clean it up. He also buries all my corals and creates sand storms.
 
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You could always try a GFO reactor. Looks like you have room for a refugium too if you wanted to place the skimmer in chamber 1 and refugium in chamber 2 in the sump. That could help too.

I thought about a gfo reactor, I was looking them up on BRS. That was going to be my next step. I always wanted a refugium, but I didn't want to lose the nitrates I had. I've also heard refugiums don't do much for phosphates, however, this could be just one persons opinion.
 
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Just beware should you take aggressive measures to reduce phosphate, you do not want to bottom out (go to 0 phos) then you will get dinos and it will 10 times worse than anything your dealing with now. Patience, yes even more.

This is my fear and one of the reasons I'm considering stopping. As of now it doesn't seem to be doing much damage being high, and I'm worried about it dropping to nothing, so maybe I should just let it be.
 

motortrendz

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Depending on how long your rocks have absorbed the phosphate for as your removing it the rocks will release what they have absorbed over time. It could take a while before you start to see the reduction stay down. I'd keep going. Me personally I like using lanthanum chloride. I remove the skimmer cap and drip it right into the skimmer foam, itll bind to the phosphate and get skimmed out of your system (your skimmate will look terrible.) I've always found with media you cant really tell if its exhausted, and when it is does, will it leach the po4 back into the system? And I'm sure the media would work better in a reactor that passively in a bag, so it may take more time to passively remove the phosphate.

Just my thoughts.
 
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I've always found with media you cant really tell if its exhausted, and when it is does, will it leach the po4 back into the system?

I didn't know it would go back into the system. So with media it would seem it's really important to test consistently and remove as soon as numbers seem to be increasing.
 

motortrendz

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I didn't know it would go back into the system. So with media it would seem it's really important to test consistently and remove as soon as numbers seem to be increasing.
Or that it cant absorb anymore and the rocks are still leaching what they have absorbed, bringing it back up. But over time they will run out of stored po4 and eventually you'll start seeing the numbers coming down.. keep at it.
 
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Or that it cant absorb anymore and the rocks are still leaching what they have absorbed, bringing it back up. But over time they will run out of stored po4 and eventually you'll start seeing the numbers coming down.. keep at it.

I just saw another post about this talking about the yo-yo affect, having it drop and then go back up again. I think I will stick with what I'm doing for now, and see where I'm at in another month or so.
 

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I had then happen to me awhile back. I started using gfo and the number would come down and just shoot back up. I think the issue was what others have mentioned. I had phosphate locked up in my rock that would buffer it back up. I got sick of changing the gfo so often and switched to lanthanum chloride. It was much easier to use and after some time the level stopped shooting back up so quick. As of now I still have to dose a tiny from time to time to keep it in the 0.03-0.1ppm range but my fuge mostly takes care of it.
 

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