P03 relentless, I want to take my ball and go home...

[SnapperSlapper]

I have been fighting P03 for the last 8 months and I don't know what else to do.

Current stats:

Tank 125g with sump and refugium
About 80 lbs of rock and sand is 1-2" with about 4" in the refugium
fuge has chaeto and some other macro algae (harvested frequently)
Mechanical: gfo 2-4 cups changed every 2-3 weeks
Bio pellets in a reactor for the last 3 months
Also dosing KZ products on the very low end of the recommended doses
FW, CA, and alk all automated manually dose mag.....

Current levels:

temp is always between 78.5-80
SG 1.027
nitrate is always 0 (never seen a reading higher)
Ca 420
ALk 8.5
Mag at 1450
Phos: all over the place usually .22 as low as .12 once and never again though. I was really thinking the BP would do the trick, but 6 weeks in it hit .12 than slowly back up to .24 and steady in the mid to low .2's.

Some corals have returned color in the last couple weeks but now are slowly going back to drab again. Don't know what I am missing.

I feed about 1 cube daily either mysis, brine, squid, or formula 1, and no flakes. About once a week I put a half a sheet of nori for the tang.

Water changes are 18g weekly and I've missed maybe 1 in the last 8 months.
Only use ro/di water with 1-2 tds leaving the ro and absolute 0 leaving the di membrane. I keep track of the tds readings constantly and change filters accordingly.

I have rock mixed from three different sources but it doesn't seem that the phos is coming from the rock. I have HA growing, but never on the rock, only the back glass of the tank. So it may be leeching from the rock but it would seem the algae would appear there first.

I was told that levels that consistently high had to be coming from a source other than feeding, possibly soap of something like that.... dunno, any help??

 

[Fig]

Do you have a protein skimmer?

 

[SnapperSlapper]

yeah, but I am using a tunze 9015, so I think it is sufficient but I don't really know. Since the Bio Pellets it has picked up a little, but it skims about 100ml every third day.

 

[brandon7491]

Im guessing you mean P04 because P03 is Phosphite where as P04 is Phosphate and I dont believe that there is a test kit for P03.

 

[Fig]

I really think you need some nitrate for the pellets to work properly at first, if i recall. Maybe somebody else can chime in on that. Whats your fish load like?

 

[SnapperSlapper]

I heard the same thing about nitrates, so I started running bioballs in the sump again. Thinking with high P04 (not "P03" thx brandon) that the bioballs would increase the nitrates and therefore help with phosphate export. Currently I have 7 fish, and they would eat more but I am not sure if the food is the source of the phosphate. What I am wondering is with the filtration I have versus the amount of food I am feeding if these numbers sound out of whack. Possibly something secondary contaminating the tank....or maybe something leeching like LR or the tank itself

 

[LifeAquatic]

Do you rinse the defrosted food under water before feeding? That might help your issue if not. Also, are you constantly moving the aquascape around or have a powerhead disturb the sandbed from high flow? Maybe the sandbed is being disturbed and releasing P04. You mentioned other macro algaes beside cheato? Possible the macro algae is dying and releasing p04? It seems like you are using enough Phos remover for your size tank. Maybe test the P04 every other day and see if you can pinpoint what causes the fluctuation.

 

[Fig]

You probably are, but is the GFO ran in a reactor?

 

[James404]

Sounds to me like overfeeding, try every 2-3 days and be sure to rinse food in tank first.

 

[SnapperSlapper]

The GFO is in a reactor, but no I am not rinsing the food. As far as I can tell the other algae is not dying, it is a leafy algae that roots in the sand and flourishes. Between this, and the chaeto I am pulling about 2/3 of a gallon of algae out every other week. It just doesn't seem to add up, between the algae, the skimmate, WC gunk, gfo, and filter pad gunk there is no way the food I am adding is equal to the amount of waste I am removing. I will cut back feeding 1/2 and go back to rinsing all the food. If this doesn't work I may go with the ever pleasing xenia tank.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Fig]

I know that live rock holds an amazing amount of detritus. I take a powerhead once a month or so and blow the rock-work with the main pumps off. Then I siphon the detritus off the bottom during the water exchange. This may help along with keeping the sump portion clean of detritus also.

 

[ssavader]

I can't see anything that you are doing wrong, accept not rinsing the frozen food until the rinse water is clear, but the fact remains that with your PO4 so variable, sometimes your PO4 "removal" exceeds the "input" and sometimes it does not. Holmes- Farley has a great article on PO4 sources in the marine aquarium in the Chemistry forum. Here are a couple of thoughts: 1) look for dead spots in the tank where flow is poor and nutrient rich debris can decompose, 2) when doing water changes, siphon from the bottom (without sucking up the sand!) and pay attention to the crevices between rock formations and at the base of the rocks where water flow is less robust, 3) look for decomposing fish, snails, inverts, etc that may be missing (do a careful inventory of your livestock), and 4) check the PO4 level on your R/O water supply and the salt water supply, where ever it come from. Even your LFS can get lax on monitoring their water, R/O system, and salt mixture. Also, try a different brand of high quality test kit and see if there is uniformity between the kit you are using and your "new" brand of test kit. Good luck.

 

[bmiller1234]

So I am reading this mobile so I apologize if this already was discussed.

What are you using for water storage containers. a lot of plastic containers can leach phospahtes. I noticed you so good sized water changes and if its stored in leaching containers you could be dumping phoshates into tank every water change and top off.

 

[Genetics]

Just for reference. The next time you do a water change take a sample of fresh water and test it.

If the phosphate is trapped in the rocks it may continue to leach for some time without any notice of decreasing phosphate levels. Did you buy your rock new or get it used from someone?

 

[DeepSeaBeauti]

The GFO is in a reactor, but no I am not rinsing the food. As far as I can tell the other algae is not dying, it is a leafy algae that roots in the sand and flourishes. Between this, and the chaeto I am pulling about 2/3 of a gallon of algae out every other week. It just doesn't seem to add up, between the algae, the skimmate, WC gunk, gfo, and filter pad gunk there is no way the food I am adding is equal to the amount of waste I am removing. I will cut back feeding 1/2 and go back to rinsing all the food. If this doesn't work I may go with the ever pleasing xenia tank.

Thanks for the help.

Get rid of those filter pads!!! Where are they? Filter pads are a breeding ground for high PO4. If you are running a sump with chaeto i do not see any need for filter pads. Getting rid of my mechanicle filtration of these types was the best thing i ever did for my tank. If you dont clean them almost daily stuff builds up fast.
Get rid of the filter pads, and rinse the food prior to feeding, and watch the PO4 drop.

 

[LifeAquatic]

Make sure you keep your mechanical filtration clean or that can be another source of P04.

 

[SnapperSlapper]

I have never heard the filter pad thing before. I use a 10 micron pad and rinse it weekly, but yes it does get nasty. Usually by the second day the water is flowing by it instead of through it. As far as containers go I am using a brute can. I have checked my ro/di water right from the hose, but not the post mix wc water from the container. I will give that a shot tomorrow to eliminate another possible source.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[SnapperSlapper]

If the phosphate is trapped in the rocks it may continue to leach for some time without any notice of decreasing phosphate levels. Did you buy your rock new or get it used from someone?

Most of the rock came from my last tank, and I had zero nutrient problems. Actually the same monti giving me problems now was in that tank and looked great.

One thing I did notice was that up until I added turbo snails I didn't see the browning in the sps corals. I also had only a bunch of patches of red velvet algae (not cyano). The turbo snails cleaned the entire 5' back wall in about 4 days and then the browning started, as well as hair algae. But this was 5 months ago, seems like the initial shock of the nutrients in the water column would have been removed.

 

[OregonReefer]

I ran into this thread doing a search about Bio Pellets...

I'm a total noob here but I was looking at the instructions at BRS about Bio Pellets and they don't recomend using GFO with them.

Also in another thread people where saying your ALK should be in the 7.5-8 range while using them...

Again, I'm totally new to the hobby but that's the info I ran into

 

[M007]

I doubt its your food, as I feed way more than that and never go above 0.08. Likely leaching from your LR. You need to remove the GFO is you want to continue with pellets. I takes at least 6-8 weeks to see results from pellets and it actually continues to evolve the longer you run them. I would suspect your P04 went up after your turbos got done with the algae which browned out some of your coral. P04 is actually found in NSW and in coral tissue so total elimination is not really desireable. If you can get it down below 0.07 you should be good. Continue on with the pellets and 10% weekly water changes. That should make a dent in your P04.