Liverocks releasing NO3 and PO4?

[icliao]

I replaced all my liverocks and remove all fish and corals on the process to convert my tank to bare bottom as an expirement.

All the corals and old liverocks were moved to an outdoor barebottom holding tank with skimmer with old tank water. The holding tank gets about 4 hour morning sun light and temperature seemed to be within 25 - 28 at peak. The holding tank also showing undetectable NO3 and PO4 after 5 days. All the fish I have either given away or add to my 500GL tank (3 fish).

My problem is in the previous 200GL, NO3 = 2 and PO4 = 0.045ppm and now is showing NO3 = 20+ and PO4 = 0.25 ppm after 5 days.

I unplugged the light and plan to do massive water changes weekly.
What else should be done?

 

[reefnetworth]

was the replacement LR cured? the smell will tell the story. if it smells bad its uncured. it should smell clean, like the ocean. if so, its gonna need to cycle before the pars drop. some LR when removed and later placed back, will have a small cycle. REEF-ON!!!

 

[icliao]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7848017#post7848017 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nano4brains
was the replacement LR cured? the smell will tell the story. if it smells bad its uncured. it should smell clean, like the ocean. if so, its gonna need to cycle before the pars drop. some LR when removed and later placed back, will have a small cycle. REEF-ON!!!

The liverocks has been in the holding tank of the LFS for a month.
I suspect the water in the holding facility is high in NO3 and PO4. Otherwise, the rocks has no foul smell. The LFS confirm to me the water in the holding tank of liverocks may be "a bit" old.

What should be done?

 

[Cody Ray]

Water changes never hurt.

 

[icliao]

Interestingly, the DSB in my refugium seemed to eliminated the Nitrate. The NO3 reading is now 3 ppm, down from previous 24 ppm 5 days ago. (By LaMotte test)

PO4 reading is still up there with 0.25 ppm, stablizing.

Is it wise to rely on RowaPhos or Phosban to stripe the phosphate out without too many times of massive water change?

 

[Philwd]

LR will give off PO4 for quite some time. And its not the water. Just stuff decaying. I had a batch I cooked for several months. Weekly WC and all and I still measured 1.0 PO4 on Saliferts until I used some phosban in the tub.

 

[Wiskey]

Do you have a skimmer on the LR? Live rock will shed deatris for a while after being removed from the ocean, or a DSB tank. This detritus will be loaded with PO4 and NO3 and it will take a while to stabilize. This is why allot of people cook their rock, it speeds up the sheading process so clean rock goes in the main system.

The DSB in the fuge is probably a bad idea, a DSB of this type will load up very quickly due to it's small area, especially if asked to deal with this sort of thing. This is going to releace phosphate into your water when it gets full. The DSB in the fuge will also take allot of the deatritus away from the skimmer where otherwise it would be removed from the system.

HTH,
Whiskey

 

[Serioussnaps]

Werent you starting to do a zeovit regimen recently??? Why the end of it? Your nitrate levels were fine from the get go if you ask me.....its very hard if not damn near impossible to have "0"nitrates however...you should have 0 phosphates....do a 50% water change and make sure you start running rowphos and some polyfilters if you really want to make sure no phoshpate...also skim very heavily

 

[icliao]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7859703#post7859703 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Serioussnaps
Werent you starting to do a zeovit regimen recently??? Why the end of it? Your nitrate levels were fine from the get go if you ask me.....its very hard if not damn near impossible to have "0"nitrates however...you should have 0 phosphates....do a 50% water change and make sure you start running rowphos and some polyfilters if you really want to make sure no phoshpate...also skim very heavily

One friend beg me to move the ZeoVit system to him first so I spare my ZeoVit system to him and still waiting for the new shipment of ZeoVit to come. By the way, I have installed 2 ZeoVit system to 2 friends tank and I can also observe the changes. One of the tank was having 8 ppm of NO3 and is now (2 weeks) undetectable.

Right now I am having 3 tanks, a 500GL with DSB and running Sulfur and Rowa, a 200GL with BB main tank with DSB refugium(moved all coral to the new 100GL tank) and I just converted my spare tanks to a outdoor 100GL holding all my corals and old liverocks. The new 100GL are fully bare bottom.

I am still debating which system to try out my ZeoVit, since both the 200GL and 100GL are now without fish. All tanks equiped with good skimmer.

The reason I replace all my rocks in the 200GL is since I am to remove all fish and sand bed in the display (the DSB in refugium can be remove easily anytime), I might as well redo the aquascape and have a fresh start.

Besides, the rocks on the 200GL was plagued with aptasia. I wasn't able to put a copperband in the tank because my powder blue and halequin were very aggressive.

I changed the water of the 200GL and now NO3 = 1 ppm and PO4 = 0.1 ppm. I also dose 5ml of Vodka daily to see what happens. I also loading 1 liter of Rowa in the reactor yesterday after 70% water change. (since there is no coral or fish yet)

 

[icliao]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7856685#post7856685 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Wiskey
Do you have a skimmer on the LR? Live rock will shed deatris for a while after being removed from the ocean, or a DSB tank. This detritus will be loaded with PO4 and NO3 and it will take a while to stabilize. This is why allot of people cook their rock, it speeds up the sheading process so clean rock goes in the main system.

The DSB in the fuge is probably a bad idea, a DSB of this type will load up very quickly due to it's small area, especially if asked to deal with this sort of thing. This is going to releace phosphate into your water when it gets full. The DSB in the fuge will also take allot of the deatritus away from the skimmer where otherwise it would be removed from the system.

HTH,
Whiskey

I do not disagree with DSB loading detritus, however, I am having real fine sand 15 cm in the refugium and it seemed to be very clear when I stir it. Unlike the coaser SSB in the display earlier, really gets dirty when I stir it. By the way, my refugium has area = 60% of my display tank.

 

[icliao]

My outdoor SPS tank gets about 4 hours of morning sunlight directly without over heating.

I just remove the SSB in the display along with all fishes and corals in my 200GL. (The corals in the pictures are moved to the above tank)

My 500GL running Sulfur and Rowa. Photo as May 2006.

Equipments on the 500GL:

 

[oligotrophic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7861860#post7861860 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by icliao
My outdoor SPS tank gets about 4 hours of morning sunlight directly without over heating.

wow!, I really like that outdoor tank. May I know the ambient temperature, as I wonder how the tank remains cool being in Indonesia, at the tropics. Is it shaded partially ?

Cheers

 

[icliao]

wow!, I really like that outdoor tank. May I know the ambient temperature, as I wonder how the tank remains cool being in Indonesia, at the tropics. Is it shaded partially ?

Cheers

I live in Bandung which is a highland basin around 600 - 800 meters elevation. So the temperature outdoor is around 27 in day time and 23 at night all year round. The tank is in my balcony and the sun will be shadded passing 11 am. The water temperature fall to around 24 early in the morning and begin to raise as the sunlight begin to hit the tank around 7.00 am. I usually went up to 28 max and start falling as the tank became shadded passing 11 am. The shade also prevent rain water from falling into the tank. I have used lots of liverock and have no fish in there. I took the lux of morning sunlight and it is around 70,000 lux to 80,000 lux right above the surface of the tank water.

 

[Cody Ray]

Your so lucky

Something interesting I found out. Swings in pH can cause phosphate to either bind or unbind from calcium (sand and rock) so it might have been a simple change in pH that could have caused the spike in PO4. Your NO3 could simply be that you have disturbed many of the anaerobic bacteria. Why did you feel the need to switch your aquarium looked great to begin with!

 

[icliao]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7869184#post7869184 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ChinChek787
Your so lucky

Something interesting I found out. Swings in pH can cause phosphate to either bind or unbind from calcium (sand and rock) so it might have been a simple change in pH that could have caused the spike in PO4. Your NO3 could simply be that you have disturbed many of the anaerobic bacteria. Why did you feel the need to switch your aquarium looked great to begin with!

I did not make any change on the 500GL. The 200GL was set up for experiement to begin with. It ran fine for 9 months and I couldn't drive PO4 to near 0 so I decide to make another experiement by removing all fish and substrate.

 

[oligotrophic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7868213#post7868213 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by icliao
I live in Bandung which is a highland basin around 600 - 800 meters elevation. So the temperature outdoor is around 27 in day time and 23 at night all year round. The tank is in my balcony and the sun will be shadded passing 11 am. The water temperature fall to around 24 early in the morning and begin to raise as the sunlight begin to hit the tank around 7.00 am. I usually went up to 28 max and start falling as the tank became shadded passing 11 am. The shade also prevent rain water from falling into the tank. I have used lots of liverock and have no fish in there. I took the lux of morning sunlight and it is around 70,000 lux to 80,000 lux right above the surface of the tank water.

oh boy, this sounds great, natural chiller, natural sunlight and best of all no rain exposure!! I wish I could do just that... So how did the experiment lead to after removal of fish, did nutrient levels decrease substantially ? but water changes performed after the removal of fish?

do you go collect LR from the sea or buy from LFS? this sounds like paradise for reefers ... :eek1:

 

[icliao]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7870572#post7870572 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by oligotrophic
oh boy, this sounds great, natural chiller, natural sunlight and best of all no rain exposure!! I wish I could do just that... So how did the experiment lead to after removal of fish, did nutrient levels decrease substantially ? but water changes performed after the removal of fish?

do you go collect LR from the sea or buy from LFS? this sounds like paradise for reefers ... :eek1:

I still buy most of my liverocks since collecting liverock from unpoluted water still take hours of drive and some boat ride. I just setted up the outdoor tank one week ago and moved all the rocks and water from the old setup. The tanks has undetectable NO3 but still shows 0.03 ppm PO4.

 

[oligotrophic]

for PO4 within the LR, just got to keep pH at safe level to prevent any leaching.

You are living in Acro country!!