Thinking ahead - maintaining phosphate once I get it down to a reasonable level

[BryanM]

Long story short the GFO reactor is kicking the phosphates butt. in just under 3 weeks I've gone from off the charts (.9 blinking), down to .46 last night.

I'm going to turn off the GFO reactor when I get to .15....

But what do I do if it starts to creep up again? Nitrates have been fairly steady between 8-10 for a few months now.

My only filtration is a Santa Monica Surf4 ATS.

If that cannot keep up with phospates, whats my next step?

 

[UMALUM]

.15 and 10 seems like the idea levels for bacto balance. I'm at .1 and 6 and it does a good job of keeping it there. Livestock loves the extra food as well.

 

[bluemon]

I'd just run the GFO at a really low flow.

I recently reached 2.9 Phosphates, decided the corals didn't look the happiest, so I ran GFO down to around 0.35 now.

I'm okay with high phosphates, so I plan on keeping it around 0.25-0.5, so I am just running the reactors with really low flow to keep it in that range.

 

[Biokabe]

Well, the first thing to do is to identify why the phosphates were that high to begin with.

Did it come from rocks that were saturated with phosphate? Was it because you were overfeeding the tank? Or can the ATS not fully handle all the phosphate on its own?

 

[BryanM]

Well, the first thing to do is to identify why the phosphates were that high to begin with.

Did it come from rocks that were saturated with phosphate? Was it because you were overfeeding the tank? Or can the ATS not fully handle all the phosphate on its own?

In short, I bottomed out N & P... Long story, and I over-dosed phosphate.

I am not sure if the ATS can handle it.... It is certainly handling nitrates quite well with 3 feedings a day (sometimes 4 when I spot feed corals).

 

[fish_collector]

Add more corals and fish. I have to continuously add nitrate and phosphate.

 

[Reefering1]

You can always use less gfo in reactor...
I likely wouldn't just shut it down, leave it stagnant, then run it again when you need to reduce p04. Find a balance so it's not perpetually rising or falling.

 

[JonoH]

As per others, i would just dial down the reactor so it maintains that level - will take a bit of dialing in to get right.

 

[BryanM]

You can always use less gfo in reactor...
I likely wouldn't just shut it down, leave it stagnant, then run it again when you need to reduce p04. Find a balance so it's not perpetually rising or falling.

This is exactly what I'm asking, and I know it is trial and error, I'm just fishing for options to find this balance.

 

[Waters]

This is exactly what I'm asking, and I know it is trial and error, I'm just fishing for options to find this balance.

You have a few options....increasing water changes, decreasing feeding (or changing types of foods being fed), run GFO at smaller amounts/decreasing flow. Just have to figure out what combinations work the best for you.

 

[VintageReefer]

Gfo tends to clump up and turn into a brick if you don’t have the flow right. I would just run a smaller amount and see what’s needed to keep the level where you want it

How many hours per day is the scrubber led on?

 

[BryanM]

Gfo tends to clump up and turn into a brick if you don’t have the flow right. I would just run a smaller amount and see what’s needed to keep the level where you want it

How many hours per day is the scrubber led on?

24hrs a day for the ATS.

 

[VintageReefer]

24hrs a day for the ATS.

Ok. Maxed lol.

Suggest slowly reducing amount of gfo in the reactor until phosphate levels stop dropping and stay steady