Phosphate Problem???

[johnfluevogs]

I am fighting a phosphate problem and need lots of help.

I have yet to get a stony coral to live due to phosphates.

Where do they come from?

I am currently running Phos Ban in a Reactor.

Please lend suggestions.

 

[elephen]

Did you setup your phosban reactor correctly?

Also what are your water perams, how much/what do you feed. We need details to figure out your problem.

 

[elephen]

Also are you using RODI water?

 

[johnfluevogs]

OK

nitrate 0
intrite 0
ph 8.2-8.4
temp 79/80
alk "normal"
phosphates 0.1

The Phosban reactor seemed to help lots, but there is something that is continually feeding my tank phosphate and it cant keep up (i think).

I usually feed once a day, usually some type of frozen, brine, cyclopeez, some phyto, i mix it up.

I do use RODI water, the RO system is 5 months old.

 

[jun_celis]

First of all...

TO REEF CENTRAL

What are your phosphate readings?

 

[johnfluevogs]

Thank you.

I find that lots of questions are answered on this board and figured that my phosphate problem cant be new to the world of reefs.



FYI... I have 175w SE Halide with 2 36w Actinic pc
CPR in sump skimmer
10g refugium
5-600gph of flow

 

[skireef]

If you are experiencing damage to you corals, it may be due to "material" escaping from the phosban reactor. First of all, the surface of the phosban in the ractor should be gently moving with no media escaping to the top. Secondly, you need to have some type of filter bag to capture any media that escapes.

I ran an experiment with my office 90g tank/ I found a direct correlation with coral damage (primarily hard corals) and the ferrous oxide being released into the tank. When I employed the filter bags, that damage stopped.

btw, .1 levels are fine IMO. I have that level in my system with great growth for all my animals. My major source of phosphate is from food and my ca reactor.

 

[jun_celis]

You'll be surprise how much people chimes in here just to tell everyone about their phosphate issues. Feeding once a day for me is really heavy especially in a well established tank. How old is your tank? Wash your frozen food with an RO water first and drained it before giving it your tank. My phosphate is unreadable at this point because I only feed maybe 2x a week and wash it before entering my tank.

 

[johnfluevogs]

skireef: I have set my phosphate reactor to dispense back into my sump through a filter bag that collects loos particals. When i change out the filter bag I do find those yellow/red particals in it.






jun_celis: I just started rinsing my frozen food and I also have started to scale back my feedings as of 1 week ago

 

[johnfluevogs]

I think that I am going to turn off my phosphate reactor for a few weeks and see how it goes.

What does everybody think.



Can I be getting the phosphates from my RO water? I did test the water and it test at around the same 0.1. I dont really have a grasp of whether 0.1 is really something to worry about or not.

 

[skireef]

I would leave the reactor alone and change the media every couple of months, keep monitoring the filter bag. Don't forget...good things happen VERY SLOWLY in a reef tank!!! I f your tank is more than 2 years old then I might be concerned about your stony coral growth.

 

[johnfluevogs]

I have had a tank for about a year but just upgraded to the 30 g cube and sump system in august.

I am still haveing trouble with the stony corals.

Softies, brains, torch, frogspawn, Clams. There all doing well.

Every peice has its swing, while at the same time the two clams I have are doing the best of everything.

I cant figure it out.

 

[dandydan]

I was caught out without a TDS meter for my RO unit, when very quickly before i installed a pump my Deionisation Resin ran out, and presumably the membrane damaged.
I think it is a must to either have an inline or TDS pen, especially considering the low cost involved

Cheers

 

[Nem0]

Johnfluevogs,

Any improvement to your phosphate problem? BTW, 0.1ppm of phoasphate is not going to kill your hard coral. At times, mine is 0.18ppm and the sps are still growing, but just that they look brown.

 

[johnfluevogs]

So, my phosphates havent been higher than 0.1 according to a Red Sea test kit. Do you suspect that something else may be the cause.

They bleach and die off as opposed to a discoloration.

 

[dolt]

one interesting question it whether the granules damage corals or not if they get into the tank - there is a good thread on this media in general in the deltec forum - check it out - there people seem to feel that it does not cause damage and is just a cosmetic issue - the material is not caustic so that makes sense unless there is a lot of it and the corals somehow uptake it in their polyps but this seems unlikely unless there is a ton floating around

 

[johnfluevogs]

My phosphate reactor empties the water into the filter sock in my sump. The filter sock does an excellent job at catching "loose" media; and I have never seen any floating around in my tank.

I must be doing something terribly wrong with the whole system, now its a matter of figuring it out.

 

[Holyreefer]

Figuring it out is the hard part...
I recently just had a MAJOR spike in my phosphates and in a matter of 12hours when the lights came on all of my hard corals were bleached, even though i did a water change.

I also noticed out of all the mushroom corals i had only one of them survived my phosphate spike. Where it came from i don't know but i do know my test kit was old and i wasn't getting the correct readings on it so a lost taken...

But wherever it came from i'm sure it was there for longer than a day it had to be built up over time, and now i am looking into getting the phosphate reactor x2.

I didn't know the media from the phosphate reactors were that dangerous to our tanks, so a filter sock is needed to caught any free floating media?

 

[Holyreefer]

Oh yeah and the surviing coral was a Ricidoria(spelling) mushroom green with purple outlining its a nice one!

 

[dolt]

Holyreefer- I'm not sure if it is unsafe or not - there seems to be no consensus but as always better safe than sorry so making sure none gets in with some sort of sock or fine bag on output from reactor is a good idea - the sudden spike may have been from the death of something - a fish crab or even a snail will put out a ton of organic matter in the tank quickly and may not always be visible (ie if under or behind a rock)