Updated: High phosphate and nitrate solution

[canadianeh]

My tank is 6 months old. 65 gallons total system. Coras are LPS and anemone. Fish are melanarus wrasse, royal flasher wrasse, yellow watchman goby, dartfish, two clowns, Molly Miller blenny, and yellow tang. Inverts are snails, starfish and urchin. Salinity 1.026
Temp 78
Alk 9
Cal 400
Mag 1320

I am running Aqua UVsterilizer 24/7, refugium light 12 hours at night, clarisea filter roller, skimmer, and carbon reactor. Tons of marine pure balls in sump.

I feed frozen foods two times a day 3/4 teaspoon per feed. Frozen foods are soaked in selcon, garlic, and various vitamins. I also feed small sheet of seaweed per day.

I used to do 5 gallons WC per week but the nitrate was undetectable and phosphate was low. So I started to do 5 gallons WC every other week.

Fast forward today. My nitrate is 25 (Salifert) and Phosphate 0.494 (Hanna)!

What’s the best way to tackle this problem other than I am going to start to do 5 gallons WC weekly again instead of every other week?

Do I need to?
-increase refugium light duration longer than 12 hours per day?
-feed less frozen foods ratio to once a day and feed flakes or pellets for the second round feeding instead?
-run GFO reactor?
- get more corals to help consume the problem?
-do larger WC at once?
-stop feeding frozen foods for awhile?

hope all the information is here to help you to help me.
Thank you.

 

[Adamantium]

Firstly, your tank looks good, so don’t do anything dramatic. Those numbers are a tad high, but plenty of successful tanks run in that range.

Mine used to, until I added an NO3 Xport brick by Brightwell. It’s doped with sulfur, which aids denitrification. They even make bricks for PO4, but mine came down with just this.

If you have the room, that’s what I’d recommend. Your rock work is a little on the light side, so it could help in more ways than one.

 

[Adamantium]

Also, 5 gallon water changes are less than 8%, which could be part of the problem. You’re not removing much with that.

I do weekly to biweekly 10 gallon changes on my 40 breeder, which amounts to 25% before you factor in the rock displacement of the water.

 

[canadianeh]

Firstly, your tank looks good, so don’t do anything dramatic. Those numbers are a tad high, but plenty of successful tanks run in that range.

Mine used to, until I added an NO3 Xport brick by Brightwell. It’s doped with sulfur, which aids denitrification. They even make bricks for PO4, but mine came down with just this.

If you have the room, that’s what I’d recommend. Your rock work is a little on the light side, so it could help in more ways than one.

Forgot to mention that I have tons of marine pure balls in the sump hence less rocks. I was aiming for minimalist

 

[pseudorand]

Firstly, your tank looks good, so don’t do anything dramatic.

+2 to your tank being beautiful, and I'm jealous. I certainly wouldn't chase numbers if my tank looked that good. I'd just post pics in the R2R forums to make others jealous.

 

[Luisreefmexico]

I think you are feeding a lot
You should change to pellet and manage with a measuring spoon.
i have more fishes and i only use 1/4 tsp in the morning and 1/4 tsp in after 6 pm and all my fishes are healthy, more than 2 years with me.
i think the frozen food is a bad way to feed your fishes when you can find excellent pellet.
i recommend you EASYREEF

 

[Radicalrob1982]

My tank is 6 months old. 65 gallons total system. Coras are LPS and anemone. Fish are melanarus wrasse, royal flasher wrasse, yellow watchman goby, dartfish, two clowns, Molly Miller blenny, and yellow tang. Inverts are snails, starfish and urchin. Salinity 1.026
Temp 78
Alk 9
Cal 400
Mag 1320

I am running Aqua UVsterilizer 24/7, refugium light 12 hours at night, clarisea filter roller, and carbon reactor. Tons of marine pure balls in sump.

I feed frozen foods two times a day 3/4 teaspoon per feed. Frozen foods are soaked in selcon, garlic, and various vitamins. I also feed small sheet of seaweed per day.

I used to do 5 gallons WC per week but the nitrate was undetectable and phosphate was low. So I started to do 5 gallons WC every other week.

Fast forward today. My nitrate is 25 (Salifert) and Phosphate 0.494 (Hanna)!

What’s the best way to tackle this problem other than I am going to start to do 5 gallons WC weekly again instead of every other week?

Do I need to?
-increase refugium light duration longer than 12 hours per day?
-feed less frozen foods ratio to once a day and feed flakes or pellets for the second round feeding instead?
-run GFO reactor?
- get more corals to help consume the problem?
-do larger WC at once?
-stop feeding frozen foods for awhile?

hope all the information is here to help you to help me.
Thank you.

I would add some more rock if you don't mind the look. I run a 20 long with at least 15 pounds of rock. I use a aqua dream power head on pulse to give good flow. I also have a coral beauty, two clowns and a orange spotted goby. I have to wait almost 4 weeks before even considering a 10% water change. I run no filter or skimmer. I feed 3 times a day sparingly. My tank is doing great other than my phosphates are at .25. My nitrates are at 8 ppm after 3 weeks. Considering using a small hob filter for gfo. I would add more rock and get some good flow going. Seems to really help my tank out a lot. Other than phosphates. Either that or reduce the bioload

 

[A_game43]

Firstly, your tank looks good, so don’t do anything dramatic. Those numbers are a tad high, but plenty of successful tanks run in that range.

Dido from above - your tanks looks good! Go slow with any changes. You could rinse your frozen food to help reduce PO4, reduce frozen in half as well.
I use the product called Phophate RX by Blue Life - Watch a really good video on Melev's Reef. I add this product to my skimmer, a few drops and test PO4 24& 48hrs later to understand the reduction. Check your TDS meter for your RO is this water source good as well?

 

[New Jersey REEF]

For phosphates I would set up GFO reactor. This will be quick fix for that.

Nitrates you need to either set up refugium or ATS reactor, Feed less and maybe do very big water change for quick fix. Make sure alkalinity and salinity matches if you desire to do 80-90% water change

In a long run, consider dosing carbon if you have a good skimmer for export method of nitrates/ phosphate

 

[canadianeh]

I would add some more rock if you don't mind the look. I run a 20 long with at least 15 pounds of rock. I use a aqua dream power head on pulse to give good flow. I also have a coral beauty, two clowns and a orange spotted goby. I have to wait almost 4 weeks before even considering a 10% water change. I run no filter or skimmer. I feed 3 times a day sparingly. My tank is doing great other than my phosphates are at .25. My nitrates are at 8 ppm after 3 weeks. Considering using a small hob filter for gfo. I would add more rock and get some good flow going. Seems to really help my tank out a lot. Other than phosphates. Either that or reduce the bioload

I have two MP40s running at 15-20% right now so I think flow is enough. I also have random flow generator nozzles.

 

[canadianeh]

For phosphates I would set up GFO reactor. This will be quick fix for that.

Nitrates you need to either set up refugium or ATS reactor, Feed less and maybe do very big water change for quick fix. Make sure alkalinity and salinity matches if you desire to do 80-90% water change

In a long run, consider dosing carbon if you have a good skimmer for export method of nitrates/ phosphate

I have refugium in sump already and have Nyos 120 skimmer.

 

[New Jersey REEF]

I have refugium in sump already and have Nyos 120 skimmer.

Long temp, you can start dosing carbon. Very effective method, it does take time before you start seeing results, some say upto 6 weeks

 

[canadianeh]

Long temp, you can start dosing carbon. Very effective method, it does take time before you start seeing results, some say upto 6 weeks

Long temp?

dosing carbon = using bio pellets?

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Long term, darn autocorrection.
Vodka or Nopax

biopellets also work similar way but little bit more effect with set up requirement than just simple dosing

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I am in the same boat, don't make my mistakes:

Marine blocks as suggested are junk and didn't do anything
Sulfur denitrator didn't do a single thing after 8 months
Water changes did nothing
Carbon dosing has yet to kick in after 1 year

Nitrates are the absolute hardest thing in this hobby to lower once they get higher. I would bet you can change 100% of your water and they would be high within the hour.

 

[canadianeh]

I am in the same boat, don't make my mistakes:

Marine blocks as suggested are junk and didn't do anything
Sulfur denitrator didn't do a single thing after 8 months
Water changes did nothing
Carbon dosing has yet to kick in after 1 year

Nitrates are the absolute hardest thing in this hobby to lower once they get higher. I would bet you can change 100% of your water and they would be high within the hour.

That is strange. I had nitrates over 100 ppm after cycling and I was able to lower them down to acceptable level with few 30% WC.

I think my marine pure balls are working fine. I think I have been feeding too much frozen food. I am going to try to lower nitrate and phosphate by temporarily stopping frozen food and keep up with weekly WC. I will report back in few weeks. My corals are doing fine so far.

 

[KC's CNC Creations]

if it was just a high PO4 issue, i'd recommend using Blue Life Phosphate RX with a 10 micron filter sock, it'll bind the phosphates so they can be easily removed with the filter sock safely. it is Lanthanum chloride based, but it doesn't cause all the issues associated with using 'pool store' variety.

with you haveing high NO3 levels as well, the simplest solution would be one or multiple large water changes, don't be afraid to do 75-100% water changes. they work, and if they don't, you have bad testing or the water you're using has high levels of nitrates and/or phosphates in it as well.

 

[canadianeh]

Update:

last week I posted my nitrate and phosphate level (see post #1).

Following suggestions from you guys here, since last week, I stopped feeding frozen, didn’t feed reefroids and LPS pellets (I usually target feed corals twice a week). I have been feeding twice a day ONLY with pellets and flakes in small quantity. I still dose red sea AB+ everyday.

The test result today is Nitrate 25 and Phosphate 0.196.

So my tank manage to cut down the phosphate level to almost half just by stop feeding frozen foods completely. I didn’t do large WC. I didn’t use GFO or any other additive. I am going to do 5 gallons WC today (out of 60 gallons total) and report back next week. I am glad that I don’t need to use GFO and additives to deal with the phosphate.

 

[pseudorand]

Update:

last week I posted my nitrate and phosphate level (see post #1).

Following suggestions from you guys here, since last week, I stopped feeding frozen, didn’t feed reefroids and LPS pellets (I usually target feed corals twice a week). I have been feeding twice a day ONLY with pellets and flakes in small quantity. I still dose red sea AB+ everyday.

The test result today is Nitrate 25 and Phosphate 0.196.

So my tank manage to cut down the phosphate level to almost half just by stop feeding frozen foods completely. I didn’t do large WC. I didn’t use GFO or any other additive. I am going to do 5 gallons WC today (out of 60 gallons total) and report back next week. I am glad that I don’t need to use GFO and additives to deal with the phosphate.

I've always read the opposite -- frozen is mostly water and won't change nutrients that much while pellet will.

What brand of frozen were you using? Do you thaw and rinse? (I don't, but perhaps I should since I too have high phosphate.) What brand of pellet?

 

[canadianeh]

I've always read the opposite -- frozen is mostly water and won't change nutrients that much while pellet will.

What brand of frozen were you using? Do you thaw and rinse? (I don't, but perhaps I should since I too have high phosphate.) What brand of pellet?

I am using Fauna Marin LPS food and Vitalis pellets and flakes for fish.

For frozen I mix omega one blood worms, pemysis, and San Francisco Bay spirulina brine shrimp. One cube of each and then I mix them with a drop or two of several vitamins.