WHAT HAVE I DONE!!

MollyDog

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Curious what you’d recommend in this situation.

So I was trying to cut corners at the time and was using tap water that I ran through a dual carbon reactor up until recently. Then actually checking my source water and realizing it was 0.9 for phosphates. I bought a RODI.

(I used tap water for over 8 months.)

I had extremely high phosphates in the tank up until two weeks ago at 0.68 at its highest. But it didn’t seem to be effecting anything but assumed it definitely wasn’t ideal. So I added 1/4 of high capacity GFO for a week and phosphates went down to 0.08. Since then I lost 2 snails and had a few corals start to fade out in color. (Montipora digi, a red cap and a setosa and the top of a pocillapora go slightly white.)

I removed the GFO and will be only topping the tank off with RODI water as well as doing my water changes from now on.

So basically I’m just wondering for how long will the corals be effected and be loosing there colors? I feel that the shock in the phosphate dip is what caused the issues in color fading.

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Icryhard

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Well first things first, if they're happy in a certain range, leave it at that. Why disturb something which is thriving (look at my own posts in which I am screwing up stuff and Vetteguy had to help out).
Second of all, going up or down in a fast pace can cause corals to stress or even bail out like that. let it slowly but surely come down if you intent to lower a value (unless it's something like ammonia). What I did was add a little bit of nitrate (in my case it was nitrates), but slightly lower than what it was before and from there on out I lowered it very little by little. Not sure whether this would work for phosphate, but that's how I resolved my issue.
 

Nman

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The problem with high phosphate is that you can reduce it and get a good test results. Then test next day and it’s back up . Leaching from rock and sand . My tank is the same at the moment phosphate high reduces no problem then next day up . Water changes never reduced my phosphate at all . But reducing too fast can result in problems. This is only my opinion and other members with more knowledge can go into more depth with you . Randy H is good with all this stuff https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-lower-high-phosphate.981624/
 
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Dom

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Just let everything be.

Give them time (I usually wait 2-4 weeks) to adapt to the changes you've made. Make one change at a time, otherwise you can never know which of your changes had a positive affect.
 
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MollyDog

MollyDog

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Appreciate the responses, I didn’t think the 1/4 cup of GFO would instantly drop the phosphate that much. Reading online that anything over 0.2-0.3 is way to high had me scars when my tank tested 0.68. I’m going to let the tank sit and I’ll test today to see where it goes but I’m assuming that’s why I’m seeing loss in color! I’ll keep this thread updated on how it runs it’s course.

I’ve been out of this hobby for about 9 years and I remember everyone use to preach 0 phosphate and 0 nitrates and after a lot of research I’m getting up to date on the new information! Really appreciate any feed back anyone has to offer!

I just want the tank to thrive. I’m hoping in a month I’ll be able to see some positive effects from lowering the phosphate and won’t be doing this again.
 

Jax3545

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Appreciate the responses, I didn’t think the 1/4 cup of GFO would instantly drop the phosphate that much. Reading online that anything over 0.2-0.3 is way to high had me scars when my tank tested 0.68. I’m going to let the tank sit and I’ll test today to see where it goes but I’m assuming that’s why I’m seeing loss in color! I’ll keep this thread updated on how it runs it’s course.

I’ve been out of this hobby for about 9 years and I remember everyone use to preach 0 phosphate and 0 nitrates and after a lot of research I’m getting up to date on the new information! Really appreciate any feed back anyone has to offer!

I just want the tank to thrive. I’m hoping in a month I’ll be able to see some positive effects from lowering the phosphate and won’t be doing this again.
I've got 10 year old rock that I cooked for 2 months when i started the new tank. The phosphates in my tank are still ridiculous and seem to find an equlibrium no matter that I've bottomed them out a few times with lanathum, carbon dosing, and prazipro. Currently at .14, though 6 days ago it was
.55. I'm sure I'm stressing everything out with the swings, and leathers are tolerant, but as long as I'm watching swings, I'm holding steady with what's already in the tank.
Nothing good happens fast. I plan on 6 months for my nitrate and phosphate to level out to a good number.
 
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