Phosphate Level 0.14!!! What do I do?

V

Visual Mechanic

New member
Just got my Low Range Phosphate Photometer today and checked my tank. The reading said 0.14. Julian Sprungs Volume 3 said anything above 0.1 was bad. And anything under .45 is manageable. How do I lower Phosphates? Have an overgrown fuge with chaeto, run lights 10hrs a day. Top off with ro water that is 19ppm tds. Feed 1 time a week. No fish. Algae in all the spots I DON'T WANT! LIKE IN MY TANK AND NOT MY FUGE! Not running a phosban reactor at the moment but could. Am using Chemi Clean Elite and it seemed to clear the water but nuisance algae is wanting to take over my corals and tank. It is only a 24g nano so things are a little cramped . What do I do? Thanks, Vinny.:confused: Sorry if any info was left out.
 
Why does your RO water have a TDS of 19? And if you know this, why don't you fix the problem? It should be 0, maybe 1.

Do you have DI also, or just RO?
 
GFO?

GFO?

I do not have a DI cartridge yet. Just got a 6 stage setup. 19tds is the purest I can find. What is GFO? Should I just use distilled water for top off and makeup water?
 
Awesome! Thank you for the info folks! I just tested my salt mix and the phosphate level was 0.06. According to Sprung and Dilbeck they say 0.045 and above can be harmfull to corals. 0.044 and below is manageable. But 0.02 is what you want to stay under. Would running a phosphate remover like rowaphos work or is ozone another direction I might want to read up on to further control this problem? I am installing a 6 stage rodi unit this weekend. I do have a new tds meter to check the pars. Shall I just wait to check the water before researching ozone ? And is 0.06 in your opinions, all that bad? Just wanna get my facts straight. Thank you all much! Vinny
 
Six stage and it doesn't have a DI??? Sounds like someone took you for a ride. Most good models have four stages, one of which is a DI.

Example:
http://buckeyefieldsupply.com/showproducts.asp?Category=168&Sub=166

In my opinion, step one is getting your RO/DI taken care of. Step two is identifying any other major source of P04 (i.e. overfeeding) and fixing it. Step three is to get some GFO in there SLOWLY (with the amount you have, you could easily shock the system) and start getting it removed.
 
No, I have a current system that is 3 stage ro. It had a tds of 100ppm. That's when I switched to getting watert from a water store. I just got up enough money to get a 6 stage used. I built a calcium reactor for a gentleman and that was part of the trade. I am going to change out the filters today but am not sure which di resin to use. And would I use a tcf or cfm? membrane? I am a plumber by trade and am gonna do the membrane flush setup. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Any particular recomendation for GFO. I did put a bag of chemi pure elite in which states it has a phosphate remover in it. I put it in my return baffle serction of my fuge. It may not get enough flow or not the direct flow through it that it needs. I am just running out of places to hang filters and fuges and skimmers on this little 24g tank. It was so much easier when my wife and i had a 240g setup witha 150g sump!
 
I guess I should start this by saying that I'm in no way endorsing the product, nor the vendor here. I just wanted to pass along some info that I think might be worth considering by the IP. I'm sure it's available elsewhere, but this is the first place that came to mind and they are an RC sponsor.

http://www.toofishy.com/product.php?productid=27861&cat=723&page=1

There's been some discussion about the use of Lanthanum Chloride to remove phosphates. There was a thread I ran across a while back that discussed this product and LC. In your case, this might be worth just giving some thought to at the very least. It doen't seem to be the snake oil that lots of other stuff out there is. Just a bit over-priced for what it really is. A word of caution is warranted here in that dropping phosphate levels TOO fast can cause as many problems as the elevated levels themselves, so patience, experimenting, and observation should be added to the product label.
 
I have thought about using this product! Thank you. I really wanted to find the source of the phosphates and I think my water is the place I am gonna start. I will however monitor the tank continuously to see if things lower just with the water I use. If it gets better but still isn't low enough, I will consider chemical means of removal. I have allways been told to find the source and start there. Use chemicals as a last resort. Is this blue life product just skimmed out once it has bound the phosphates?
 
Using GFO to remove phosphates definitely isn't a bad thing, but overusing it due to ignoring a phosphate source is bad. You're on the right path, but don't be concerned about using some GFO to help get it down to good levels WHILE investigating the cause as well.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14007857#post14007857 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Visual Mechanic
I have thought about using this product! Thank you. I really wanted to find the source of the phosphates and I think my water is the place I am gonna start. I will however monitor the tank continuously to see if things lower just with the water I use. If it gets better but still isn't low enough, I will consider chemical means of removal. I have allways been told to find the source and start there. Use chemicals as a last resort. Is this blue life product just skimmed out once it has bound the phosphates?
Click to expand...

I'm absolutley no expert on the stuff, but it's on my radar screen. There seem to be a few different means of dosing the stuff that I've seen. One is dosing it into a 10micron filter sock. Others have dosed it directly into the skimmer. It's a flocculant basically, so it would seem that it works fastand it's apparent that it will be skimmed out pretty quickly. My simplistic take on this stuff is that it seems to have the ability to correct phosphate levels VERY quickly. So that while all the recoomendations here to find the source of the problem are certainly dead-nuts correct, this stuff may offer the hope that you can get it under control less painlessly when phosphates are that far out of whack, and once you've figured out what caused it, you can ween your tank off of it, to possibly nothing more than small mainteance doses if it's even needed at all.
 
Awesome guys! Ijust went to the home depot and got the new carbon block cartridges and sediment filters. Gonna hook the unit up, flush the system for a good 5 mins and water the ol plants. Once it starts producing I will monitor the tds and also test it for phosphates since I have this new nifty testing device. I have thought this was the problem for years! If I am , sorry, we are correct, a battle will have been won on the battleground that has left many a fish and coral to rest. RIP. Thanks for all the support and info. Good reads! Will report back with results soon!
 
You should be using a RO/DI system that is for our application. All below are reputable sources. Read ALL of the FAQs in them to educate yourself.

http://melevsreef.com/

http://www.spectrapure.com/


http://www.thefilterguys.biz/index.htm

Reasearch where P04 comes from, and limit those sources. Increase your WC's with the quality water. Run generous amounts of GFO. Be careful of foods and carbons that may leach.

If I am following you correctly, your source water isn't that bad, so it sounds like an input or lack of exportation.

Double team it by limiting its introduction and accelerating the exportation to lower it.

(BTW You should have posted this in the lighting/filtration forum, far from Advanced material)
 
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I recently battled a PO4 problem in my system. I picked up a Hannah meter and it showed readings of .76! Mostly due to overfeeding. I also had PO4 leaching into my RO/DI water from an exhausted RO membrane. I set up a GFO reactor and tested the water twice a day. I found that the GFO was being exhausted every 18 hours so I was changing it every day. That got expensive so I picked up some of Brightwell's Phosphat-E and dosed it to the tank at 1/2 the recommended dose. It took about 3 months to get the PO4 to STAY low because it was leaching out of my live rock but it's finally leveled out.

1.) Cut back on feeding
2.) Test your RO/DI water. TDS should be <3ppm and PO4 should be zero
3.) Run GFO in a reactor to lower PO4
4.) Use Phosphat-E if your levels are too high for the GFO to effectively lower the levels.
 
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