Can't get phosphates under control

[SANewby]

Newby here. I have been unable to get my phosphates under control, and theyre off the chart. Was feeding once daily but didn't keep up with water changes as well as should Have. Have a 55 gal fowlr. Aqueon 75 filter and protein skimmer with several live rock. I did a partial (50%) water change w RO (0% phophate when tested ro water) and then a 100% (have yet to add salt to water until phosphates controlled), and all fish were gone prior to that. Phosphates still registering very high.
My local fish guy told me likely need new sand as leaches into the sand. Also told me to bleach my live rock and do 100% water change again.
Interested to know your thoughts. Do I replace sand? Does bleaching the live rock ruin it and/or will having it in no salt water ruin it?
Thanks in advance.

 

[garethwood]

how long has the tank been setup? how deep was the sb? and how long between wc are we talking here? it takes a fair while for phos to build up to that sort of critical level to be leaching of the charts..
if the tank is now fallow and you have nothing to save then yeah your best bet is to strip it down and start again ide say.

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[mcgyvr]

First... define very high..
Always best to use real quantifiable numbers when trying to solve problems..

second.. you have nothing living in the tank now right?
just 100% fresh water now too?

 

[homer1475]

I'm a little confused here as well.

The tank is filled with fresh water and not salt water? If thats the case, start over.

You already killed the live rock by placing it in fresh water.

While new sand leeching PO4 is a new one to me, I guess its possible, but very unlikely. Your rock, depending on the source is probably more to blame.

 

[praveen956]

Hopefully you haven't added any saltwater fish in a freshwater tank.. If that is the case, please watch a bunch of YouTube series on how to start a saltwater tank and start over.. assuming you have cycled saltwater setup, you can bring down phosphates by either GFO ( i use the one from two little fishies) or poly filter pad or both.. good luck!


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[SANewby]

Thank you. Sorry, still learning what's important info. It's been set up for about 7 mths. I rarely did wc because I kept track of the oh, nitrate, ammonia etc and they were always fine. I didn't habe a test for or even consider po4 until now. The sb is about 3 inches deep. I learned the po4 was off the charts, 5.0, after getting tested after lost 3 fish and couldn't understand why as all levels were ok. I did the 50% wc, then 100% with RO. Po4 still 5.0 after wc and a chemi pure elite in the filter. Now I have water and no salt added yet until I can get po4 normal.
Should I remove the sand?
Do I bleach the lr, want does that process look like?
Will anything grow on the lr after doing this?

 

[djbon]

You make us confused and amused at the same time. You can't have a saltwater tank with a fresh water. Are you sure you wanted a saltwater tank?

 

[SANewby]

happy ur so easily amused. I think my reply is pretty concise. I am waiting to add the saltwater after I did 100% water change again until po4 norm.
Thanks to all who are generously contributing to my learning of this exciting hobby.

 

[LuizW13]

You can't do a water change in a salt water environment with fresh water, that kills all the organisms in the salt water environment. You killed everything you worked for and grew in the last 7 months.
Since, you've already done that, and phosphate is still a big issue, you could cure your now, dead rock for several weeks while you learn more about the do's and don'ts and chemistry of the hobby.

If you hadn't already killed everything through freshwater, you could have reduced Phosphates buy running GFO or carbon dosing additives like Red Sea's NoPox.

For future reference, they say that some rocks can leach Phosphates for several months.

 

[praveen956]

I'm sorry to say this. But you basically burned the house to kill the roaches. There are far too many easier ways get the phosphates down than what you did.. I wish you consulted others before doing water changes with freshwater.. Anyways.. everyone makes mistakes.. basically you have to start over.. fill the tank with saltwater and wait for it to cycle. Once you see ammonia and nitrites 0, start adding life stock.. it should take about 4 to 6 weeks.. I wouldn't worry about phosphates since whatever the rock had, would have got leached by now anyways.. simply add gfo or poly filter pad to keep the phosphates low going forward..


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[SANewby]

You can't do a water change in a salt water environment with fresh water, that kills all the organisms in the salt water environment. You killed everything you worked for and grew in the last 7 months.
Since, you've already done that, and phosphate is still a big issue, you could cure your now, dead rock for several weeks while you learn more about the do's and don'ts and chemistry of the hobby.

If you hadn't already killed everything through freshwater, you could have reduced Phosphates buy running GFO or carbon dosing additives like Red Sea's NoPox.

For future reference, they say that some rocks can leach Phosphates for several months.

Thanks. I'm in process of curing my LR. Do u recommend doing anything to the tank sand to rid it of remaining phosphates?

 

[crawlerman]

Since the rock was already dead from adding the fresh water, couldn't you keep doing water changes with fresh water until all of the phosphates leached out? I would say the damage was done once the freshwater was added. Could using fresh RO/DI water changes be a cheap way to remove phosphates? Understanding that once phosphates go down you would have to cure/cycle the rock in saltwater. It seems this would be cheaper than GFO.