PO4 - Off the charts high and can't get it down.

Pogue

Member
My 120g DT and 40g sump are 6 months old. 1/2 of the liverock in it came from my 3year old 75g which ive shut down.
The rest of the rock was dead dry rock.

I am a have been a heavy feeder for my moderately stocked reef tank. I like my fish well fed. So I know where the PO4 has come from...i just didnt know how bad it was.

I had been testing with a salifert kit and levels appeared to be fine. That is until i realized my test kit expired 2 years ago.

My Hanna 713 read my PO4 off the charts at 3.0. I figured that was wrong and i mist have gotten a bad test kit lot#. So i bought more test reagents of a different lot#...same reading of 3.0 (thats as high as the checker reads).

I got a water sample from someone else and tested their water at 0.57, so it appears that my test kit reagents are fine. My water is the problem.

I dont notice any negative effects on my mixed reef corals. But i dont see much growth either. Makes sense as PO4 inhibits the calcium uptake process.

My question im hoping to have answered is: what is the best way to get the PO4 down.

In the past week I've done 4 water changes totalling ~140g which i estimate to be my total water volume.
PO4 budged down to 2.30.
I added 1 cup of Phosguard to a reactor.
After 24 hours PO4 is at 2.11.

Where is the PO4? I would have thought the massive water change would have made more of a difference.

My next step is to try PhosphateRX.

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I wouldn't worry about trying to drop it fast, taking a month or two to get to your target number is fine. One of the things corals have to deal with in the wild are upwellings with PO4 levels as high as 2 mg/l. And while reefs on average have .13 PO4 one of the curious things research ahs shown is increasing PO4 up to .5 mg/l increases growth even though it does impact calcification.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098111004588
 
3----> 2.11 is a pretty big dent. Water changes, GFO and feeding practices.

Mine was 1.0 about 6 weeks ago... .07 today. One big water change followed by about 12.5% changes and GFO.
 
Have you checked the phosphate level in freshly-mixed saltwater? It'd be unusual to have a problem there, but it has happened.

I'm not sure why a cup of media only reduce the phosphate level by only about 0.2 ppm, but that might be within expectations. If the live rock is leaching a lot of phosphate, it could take a lot of GFO to reduce the level. Lanthanum chloride can be cheaper, although it's more annoying to dose, since it's best to trap the precipitate that forms.
 
Thank you all for your feedback.

In regards to the Lanthanum chloride, I was thinking of dosing my sump and capturing the precipitate with simple filter floss. Would you know if that would be sufficient?
 
Thank you all for your feedback.



In regards to the Lanthanum chloride, I was thinking of dosing my sump and capturing the precipitate with simple filter floss. Would you know if that would be sufficient?



Search for lanthanum chloride reactor. There was a thread where someone ran their effluent through a floss packed filter cartridge, then to their skimmer.

I have a BRS reactor with Maxijet pump. What I did was take the reactor outlet and ran it into a 1 micron filter sock at a slow rate, probably a little slower than your sink just before the aerator kicks in. I then used an Aqualifter to just barely dribble in a very dilute LACL solution that was about 2ml LACL to about 3 gallons of water.
 
Well ive been doing some research on lanthanum chloride. It seems the general concensus for the drip method is to use a 10micron filter bag.

I have not been able to find any 10micron bags from any aquarium supplier. I have seen them produced for industrial usage in the bio diesel process, but theres no simple 3 click shopping cart when dealing in that realm.

Were do people buy their 10micron, even better, 5micron filter bags?

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Well ive been doing some research on lanthanum chloride. It seems the general concensus for the drip method is to use a 10micron filter bag.

I have not been able to find any 10micron bags from any aquarium supplier. I have seen them produced for industrial usage in the bio diesel process, but theres no simple 3 click shopping cart when dealing in that realm.

Were do people buy their 10micron, even better, 5micron filter bags?

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I have heard of people getting the smaller micron sizes form Duda Diesel.

Dennis
 
I found some 5 micron polyester filter bags on Amazon that probably would work, depending n the setup you're using. I would watch them carefully, since they are likely to plug.
 
Gfo in a reactor change it after two days then change it after 4 days then change it after a week then change it every 2 weeks till you get to your desired level and return to a monthly regiment
 
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