0.25 Phosphate - How To Remove

[Daniel91]

Hi,

 

I ran all my tests today because a few of my corals seem a little out of it.

 

Everything looks good for the big 3 (alk, ca, mg) however Nitrates are at 10 and phosphates at 0.25(!)?

 

I do not feel like I have been overfeeding, so I don't know where the phosphates come from.

 

What's a good trick to get rid of these for now? a media bag? water change?

[banasophia]

I use Phosphate RX and it works great for me, but my phosphates run a lot higher than yours cuz I feed heavily. 

 

http://www.melevsreef.com/product/phosphate-rx

[Tamberav]

3 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

Hi,

 

I ran all my tests today because a few of my corals seem a little out of it.

 

Everything looks good for the big 3 (alk, ca, mg) however Nitrates are at 10 and phosphates at 0.25(!)?

 

I do not feel like I have been overfeeding, so I don't know where the phosphates come from.

 

What's a good trick to get rid of these for now? a media bag? water change?

Which test kit did you use?

[Clown79]

Did you use Api, hanna checker or another kit?

 

What other things are you dosing? 

What do you feed? 

 

What's your maintenance routine?

 

Phosphates don't just increase due to over feeding. It could be something with maintenance, water source, even rocks.

 

I like phosguard to reduce phos but it's really important to use small amounts and test every 4 days so that phos doesn't get stripped.

[Daniel91]

API, which is notorious for being off. But something is off and this was the only thing that stood out.

 

Maintenance is ~4gal waterchange/week

Fusion 10, softies, lps and two sps

No dosing. 

 

I feed pellets one day, mysis the other

rocks are dry, but aquarium has been running for almost 6 months

Watersource is RO/DI from LFS but I actually did put 1 gal Distelled from Smart n Final store the other week - could this be it??

[seabass]

3 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

API, which is notorious for being off.

The problem with API phosphate kits isn’t that they are off; it’s that they are not low range kits.  They go up in 0.25 ppm increments, while the target range for many people is 0.01 to 0.03 ppm.  So by the time it registers, it’s already 10 times higher than what most people want it to be.

[Clown79]

5 hours ago, Daniel91 said:

API, which is notorious for being off. But something is off and this was the only thing that stood out.

 

Maintenance is ~4gal waterchange/week

Fusion 10, softies, lps and two sps

No dosing. 

 

I feed pellets one day, mysis the other

rocks are dry, but aquarium has been running for almost 6 months

Watersource is RO/DI from LFS but I actually did put 1 gal Distelled from Smart n Final store the other week - could this be it??

Distilled is unlikely the cause. 

 

I would test the rodi water you buy. Purchased rodi may not be as pure as assumed because it really depends on how well the system is maintained.

 

Do you clean out your back chambers? What is the filter media being used and the maintenance on it?

[Daniel91]

Seachem Matrix and Purigen 

back compartment is cleaning once a month and I usually replace the media as well.

[Oldsalt01]

On 12/6/2018 at 3:04 PM, seabass said:

The problem with API phosphate kits isn’t that they are off; it’s that they are not low range kits.  They go up in 0.25 ppm increments, while the target range for many people is 0.01 to 0.03 ppm.  So by the time it registers, it’s already 10 times higher than what most people want it to be.

Seabass set me straight on this, as my API kit was telling me <0.2, when in reality it was >2.0! I bit the bullet and went with a Hanna ULR Phosphorus Checker and since then have had much more consistent and reliable results. I now range between 0.03 and 0.05 Po4 and my algae issues have all but resolved.