Water change or no? High Po4 Low No3

[lukestrothman]

Newish tank - 2.5 months. Had a major dino outbreak 2-3 weeks ago. Dosed microbacter 7 and ran UV heavily. Fed phyto and pods etc etc. Now, there is ZERO dinos. Crystal clear. And zero algae. I scrape the glass maybe every 4-5 days just to get a bit of the nasty off. Theres some very faint green on the rocks. Corals are all open and happy, coloration is a bit washed out, but that could be from dinos having everything ticked off for two weeks.

My parms have consistently been 0.25ppm~ Po4 and around 10-20ppm No3...

Should I do a 10% water change to try and bring Po4 down? Or leave it alone since corals seem happy and the rockwork doesn't have much if any of an algae framework yet?

I'm feeding dry twice daily from an autofeeder on the lowest setting, and one half thumb sized chunk of LRS / Rods daily to keep nutrients up to avoid bottoming out and re-introing dinos.

Seems Nitrates aren't going up at all, which is fine, but my Po4 is steadily sitting around .25ppm.

Cheers

 

[Dburr1014]

Newish tank - 2.5 months. Had a major dino outbreak 2-3 weeks ago. Dosed microbacter 7 and ran UV heavily. Fed phyto and pods etc etc. Now, there is ZERO dinos. Crystal clear. And zero algae. I scrape the glass maybe every 4-5 days just to get a bit of the nasty off. Theres some very faint green on the rocks. Corals are all open and happy, coloration is a bit washed out, but that could be from dinos having everything ticked off for two weeks.

My parms have consistently been 0.25ppm~ Po4 and around 10-20ppm No3...

Should I do a 10% water change to try and bring Po4 down? Or leave it alone since corals seem happy and the rockwork doesn't have much if any of an algae framework yet?

I'm feeding dry twice daily from an autofeeder on the lowest setting, and one half thumb sized chunk of LRS / Rods daily to keep nutrients up to avoid bottoming out and re-introing dinos.

Seems Nitrates aren't going up at all, which is fine, but my Po4 is steadily sitting around .25ppm.

Cheers

A water change will do diddly squat for po4.

Change of you want for a refresh of water but personally I would hold off for a week. Just to make sure dinos is gone.

 

[lukestrothman]

A water change will do diddly squat for po4.

Change of you want for a refresh of water but personally I would hold off for a week. Just to make sure dinos is gone.

That's kinda what I was thinking.... Sounds like maybe just run chaeto and call it a day?

 

[exnisstech]

Water changes haven't done much to reduce po4 in my experience. Gfo has been my method but I only use it in small amounts as it strips the po4 quickly. Never use the recomended amount.
Personally since it's a new tank I would just watch it and let the tank mature a bit. I'm hesitant to get to carried away on newer tanks shooting for certain levels as it just seems to lead to tail chasing. I have one tank that stays over 0.2 and at times as high as 0.6 and nothing in the tank seems to mind.

EDIT: I'm not sure how much chaeto helps. It may be because I don't harvest mine often. I keep if for the life forms that live in it more than nutrient removal

 

[Spare time]

What test kit are you using for phosphate?

 

[SliceGolfer]

I would not react to those numbers. The tank is new and will likely experience more fluctuations in the coming months. If you cut dry feeding to once per day the P04 will likely drop some. If the corals look happy, let it be.

 

[2020 Worst Year]

run some phosguard to get rid of phosphates it works very well so just a little bit at a time as you have corals

 

[hexcolor reef]

If you want lower PO4 you can add a bag of PhosGuard measure it out to want you want. Put it in a bag and throw it in the sump

 

[lukestrothman]

Water changes haven't done much to reduce po4 in my experience. Gfo has been my method but I only use it in small amounts as it strips the po4 quickly. Never use the recomended amount.
Personally since it's a new tank I would just watch it and let the tank mature a bit. I'm hesitant to get to carried away on newer tanks shooting for certain levels as it just seems to lead to tail chasing. I have one tank that stays over 0.2 and at times as high as 0.6 and nothing in the tank seems to mind.

EDIT: I'm not sure how much chaeto helps. It may be because I don't harvest mine often. I keep if for the life forms that live in it more

than nutrient removal

Thanks - good advice.

run some phosguard to get rid of phosphates it works very well so just a little bit at a time as you have corals

I will keep an eye, if they keep going up I will consider phosguard, I've used that years ago with success.

If you want lower PO4 you can add a bag of PhosGuard measure it out to want you want. Put it in a bag and throw it in the sump

Yes, thank you! Good recommendation. I'll let the tank mature a bit before I throw that at it, but good idea.

I would not react to those numbers. The tank is new and will likely experience more fluctuations in the coming months. If you cut dry feeding to once per day the P04 will likely drop some. If the corals look happy, let it be.

I agree. Good input, thank you!

What test kit are you using for phosphate?

Hanna Phosphate. (Not the ULR one...) with 5 year old reagant packets... lol. I bought the salifert one recently, and i swear that thing is the same color no matter what. LOL