Quick way to lower phosphates

[znotch]

Hey everyone, so I have spent the past 6 months trying to lower the phosphates in my tank using regular BRS GFO in a BRS single reactor. When I set up my latest tank, I mixed approximately 80 lbs of dry rock (that had been cured for about two months) to my established 75 lbs of rock. As of Sunday, I'm getting a reading of 0.18 on the hanna checker. I knew some phosphates would leech from the dry rock but at six months later, I didn't think I would still be getting such a high reading.

Continuing the GFO is an obvious need but I am now seeking to see if there is any other method to reduce my phosphates to a more manageable level. GFO is expensive and the frequent changing is starting to break the bank. I have done some preliminary research on lanthanum chloride (Seaklear) and found that many had mixed results, with lots of people having success. I also found that some people are building lanthanum reactors to mitigate the risks associated with the lanthanum.

I am hoping that people can chime in with their experience using lanthanum, or any other method, to quickly lower phosphates. If possible, I would love to hear about any tips or issues that you encountered. If you personally built or use lanthanum (either by dosing directly or using a reactor), I would also love to hear any experience you have.

 

[pciscott]

What are your Nitrates? If they are zero you can dose Neo Nitrates. Crazy you can lower P04 by dosing nitrates! True because If your tank is low on Nitrates your P04 will rise do to something called the Redfield ratio. I keep my Nitrates between 5 and 10 and my P04 hangs between .08 and .1 without GFO. Water changes only for me the last 5 months. Learned this when I pulled pellets off-line and my tank has never looked better. Balance is a funny thing because I have been a heavy GFO user for years.

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Every time I had phosphate issues they stemmed from over feeding. Have you tried feeding less than what you are feeding now? Also, you can try an HOB filter and run phosguard for a week to see if that helps.

 

[ReefPharmer]

You can recharge gfo very easily and cheaply. All you need is love!
Ok no but seriously you need a gfo reactor (probably different from the one you use on your tank) and a feed pump. Go to the grocery store or better yet HD and get lye-the stuff they use to unclog drains and a couple 5 gallon buckets. When you get those things together, YouTube gfo recharge and you will find it to be pretty easy. You should be able to get 8-10 recharges until the gfo granules grind down. One full canister takes about 2-3 days to recharge

 

[znotch]

What are your Nitrates? If they are zero you can dose Neo Nitrates. Crazy you can lower P04 by dosing nitrates! True because If your tank is low on Nitrates your P04 will rise do to something called the Redfield ratio. I keep my Nitrates between 5 and 10 and my P04 hangs between .08 and .1 without GFO. Water changes only for me the last 5 months. Learned this when I pulled pellets off-line and my tank has never looked better. Balance is a funny thing because I have been a heavy GFO user for years.

That is pretty crazy, Scott. It actually goes against everything I have learned in my limited years of reefing experience. Unfortunately one of the test kits I don't have is a nitrate kit (yes I know, very irresponsible to not have one). My old kit expired and I never bothered to replace it. I will need to look into dosing nitrates, although it seems it may be easier to just stop skimming so much fish poop out.

By the way, do you still have the Mother of Pearl? You picked up a frag from me years ago after I had to get rid of all my acro's when (ironically) I was going through touch financial times and couldn't afford to buy the GFO to keep phosphates low.

 

[znotch]

Every time I had phosphate issues they stemmed from over feeding. Have you tried feeding less than what you are feeding now? Also, you can try an HOB filter and run phosguard for a week to see if that helps.

I've honestly been under-feeding which I think I am going to discontinue. Its not fair to my creatures that they under eat because I can't keep the water quality I want.

I will look into phosguard. Is it your experience that it works better than GFO?

 

[znotch]

You can recharge gfo very easily and cheaply. All you need is love!
Ok no but seriously you need a gfo reactor (probably different from the one you use on your tank) and a feed pump. Go to the grocery store or better yet HD and get lye-the stuff they use to unclog drains and a couple 5 gallon buckets. When you get those things together, YouTube gfo recharge and you will find it to be pretty easy. You should be able to get 8-10 recharges until the gfo granules grind down. One full canister takes about 2-3 days to recharge

Hmm, I will look into recharging. I have an extra reactor lying around that I may be able to use to recharge.. this would definitely help keep costs down! Is there a method to ensure that the GFO was actually recharged and that I'm not just reusing ineffective GFO?

 

[pandimus]

Hmm, I will look into recharging. I have an extra reactor lying around that I may be able to use to recharge.. this would definitely help keep costs down! Is there a method to ensure that the GFO was actually recharged and that I'm not just reusing ineffective GFO?

Yep.. Test the water directly coming out of reactor..

 

[dodgerblew]

What are your Nitrates? If they are zero you can dose Neo Nitrates. Crazy you can lower P04 by dosing nitrates! True because If your tank is low on Nitrates your P04 will rise do to something called the Redfield ratio. I keep my Nitrates between 5 and 10 and my P04 hangs between .08 and .1 without GFO. Water changes only for me the last 5 months. Learned this when I pulled pellets off-line and my tank has never looked better. Balance is a funny thing because I have been a heavy GFO user for years.

Great info Scott

 

[benibarra23]

Red Sea N03 PO4 X has worked great for me.

 

[pciscott]

First off when I first got in the Hobby I had not learned that much and my first tank kind of thrived. After reading 100's of threads I put what I learned to use and I have been struggling for years to keep all my corals happy. Back then 0 Nitrates and P04 .03 or lower is what I read was the best place. At club meetings the guy with the cleanest water was considered elite. Some corals did well and others did not. I think back to my first tank I did not even check Nitrates or Phosphates and I had not learned how evil P04 and Nitrate was and I went on a 4 year lets get the water clean binge. Ultra Low Nutrient. My tank was sterile and the corals were stressed and anything that went wrong would spiral into loosing coral. I had success at times, but more often my favorite piece would be lost to some unexplained shift in my tank.

So I decided after reading many success stories with very simple routines to stop overthinking and get simple. I also did learn a few things in my years of playing with the numbers that when my Nitrates were low my P04 was always higher. Took me years to figure out that by taking this out I was throwing off the balance.

There are many ways to be successful with a reef tank, but finding the balance can be tough and my new less is more approach has got both my systems much closer to the balance.


My Tank as of yesterday close to 600 Gallons total water volume is 1.027 salinity.

Alk 9
(8.5 is the number I shoot for, I adjust my dose when it gets lower than 7.5 and that is why it is up at 9, but it will come back into range soon with my growth)
CA 450
(I shoot to keep it over 430 and when it gets lower than 400 I find my salinity is dropping and need to adjust. I dose equal parts B-Ionic A and B for CA and Alk)
Mag 1600
(I keep this on the higher side because I have found with a Briopsis battle that many nuisance algae growed much slower with elevated mag so I keep this up with Kent Tech M on a stirrer)
P04 .08
(I only run GFO in the rare case it goes over .16, I have not run fresh GFO in 5 months)
Nitrate 5
(I like to keep it at 10 but do not do extra water changes unless it goes over 30 on Salifert)

I feed Frozen 2 to 3 times per day and pellets once a day. I do 75 gallon water changes once a week on the large system and 20 gallons on my 120 gallon system. I have gone to Instant Ocean salt because it is cheaper and I use 100 gallons a week on my 2 systems. I only use 0 TDS water and I run double Chloromine removal filters. I feed my corals 2 to 3 times per week with several different products and I am trying to get a little better about a schedule of what I feed and when because sometimes I forget.

I do skim for export and the skimmer pulls out Nitrate and P04, but when you get to 0 Nitrate it can not pull out P04 as easy do to these 2 parameters needing a balance. Read more on Redfield Ratio I have found on other threads.

With all this babble I have one important thing to say and that is there are way too many people who are experts and realizing who's advice to follow and who is just full of Skim is a tough road to navigate. There are many ways to have a successful tank and some with zero Nitrate and near Zero P04 will disagree with my numbers, the proof is in the pictures and I will try and post some pictures as I have been waiting for the small frags in the 400 to get big.

I am sorry to say I do not have the Mother of Pearl I got from you, lost it in a garage crash, but the Red Dragon is still doing well and had been moved into other tanks so when you are ready for SPS you are welcome to a frag.

I have the best color and health I have ever had and my Tank is Thriving on the dirty side so ease up on the GFO and keep up on water changes. I would also check your Nitrate and if it is undetectable, it would explain your P04.

Oh and I have been full of Skim at times so no disrespect to all the Experts

 

[dodgerblew]

Very well said and I'm thrilled to say that my path mirrors yours with also good results. I respect many people on this forum for their knowledge and approach, you being one of them Scott. I've always thought that I'm doing a poor job because I have always taken the less is more approach and the only consistent thing I do is make sure I'm making great water in my RODI and water change weekly. I let my corals tell me something's off and they do. To read of others having success with an approach many deem as lazy makes me feel good.

 

[Gumma 1]

Did a search for Neo Nitrates and couldn't find any information about this. Can you elaborate? Thanks Mike

 

[BeanMachine]

Did a search for Neo Nitrates and couldn't find any information about this. Can you elaborate? Thanks Mike

http://brightwellaquatics.com/products/neonitro.php

 

[znotch]

Scott: thanks for the detailed write-up. I started doing some research and I ran across this video that basically sums up the issues I've been dealing with (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWvebC3accY). I've since ordered a salifert nitrate kit from Amazon and will know for sure how to proceed once I receive it.

As far as dosing nitrates, the dude in the video said he uses this product: http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/FlourishNitrogen.html

Thanks everyone for giving me some leads on how to deal with this issue.

 

[Drone]

1 year update?

 

[iSeeMax101]

Was a pretty damn good read. Learned a lot

 

[BeanMachine]

First off when I first got in the Hobby I had not learned that much and my first tank kind of thrived. After reading 100's of threads I put what I learned to use and I have been struggling for years to keep all my corals happy. Back then 0 Nitrates and P04 .03 or lower is what I read was the best place. At club meetings the guy with the cleanest water was considered elite. Some corals did well and others did not. I think back to my first tank I did not even check Nitrates or Phosphates and I had not learned how evil P04 and Nitrate was and I went on a 4 year lets get the water clean binge. Ultra Low Nutrient. My tank was sterile and the corals were stressed and anything that went wrong would spiral into loosing coral. I had success at times, but more often my favorite piece would be lost to some unexplained shift in my tank.

So I decided after reading many success stories with very simple routines to stop overthinking and get simple. I also did learn a few things in my years of playing with the numbers that when my Nitrates were low my P04 was always higher. Took me years to figure out that by taking this out I was throwing off the balance.

There are many ways to be successful with a reef tank, but finding the balance can be tough and my new less is more approach has got both my systems much closer to the balance.


My Tank as of yesterday close to 600 Gallons total water volume is 1.027 salinity.

Alk 9
(8.5 is the number I shoot for, I adjust my dose when it gets lower than 7.5 and that is why it is up at 9, but it will come back into range soon with my growth)
CA 450
(I shoot to keep it over 430 and when it gets lower than 400 I find my salinity is dropping and need to adjust. I dose equal parts B-Ionic A and B for CA and Alk)
Mag 1600
(I keep this on the higher side because I have found with a Briopsis battle that many nuisance algae growed much slower with elevated mag so I keep this up with Kent Tech M on a stirrer)
P04 .08
(I only run GFO in the rare case it goes over .16, I have not run fresh GFO in 5 months)
Nitrate 5
(I like to keep it at 10 but do not do extra water changes unless it goes over 30 on Salifert)

I feed Frozen 2 to 3 times per day and pellets once a day. I do 75 gallon water changes once a week on the large system and 20 gallons on my 120 gallon system. I have gone to Instant Ocean salt because it is cheaper and I use 100 gallons a week on my 2 systems. I only use 0 TDS water and I run double Chloromine removal filters. I feed my corals 2 to 3 times per week with several different products and I am trying to get a little better about a schedule of what I feed and when because sometimes I forget.

I do skim for export and the skimmer pulls out Nitrate and P04, but when you get to 0 Nitrate it can not pull out P04 as easy do to these 2 parameters needing a balance. Read more on Redfield Ratio I have found on other threads.

With all this babble I have one important thing to say and that is there are way too many people who are experts and realizing who's advice to follow and who is just full of Skim is a tough road to navigate. There are many ways to have a successful tank and some with zero Nitrate and near Zero P04 will disagree with my numbers, the proof is in the pictures and I will try and post some pictures as I have been waiting for the small frags in the 400 to get big.

I am sorry to say I do not have the Mother of Pearl I got from you, lost it in a garage crash, but the Red Dragon is still doing well and had been moved into other tanks so when you are ready for SPS you are welcome to a frag.

I have the best color and health I have ever had and my Tank is Thriving on the dirty side so ease up on the GFO and keep up on water changes. I would also check your Nitrate and if it is undetectable, it would explain your P04.

Oh and I have been full of Skim at times so no disrespect to all the Experts

So where are the pictures? Let's see the beast and all those corals now! :thumbsup:

I need to rack a few reef brains soon (yours included) on my new tank purchase.

Your Skim definitely doesn't stink.

 

[waterman78]

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK FEEDBACK: This was very interesting and entertaining. Having gone through a similar cycling issue with introducing cured Rock to an established tank....If faced with this issue again. my first step would be to reverse the last step and that is to remove the newly added rock and recycle it in the container with a small piece of the established Rock..... My thinking here would be to introduce the established bacteria to the new rock and allow time for the phosphates to level out....maybe another two weeks later test the container's condition then evaluate introducing it to the main display tank.

Water changes and ROWAphos may have saved the immediate temporary PO4 issue but not the right step with balancing the equation.

****** there are many different ways to solve issues.... I am happy I found this thread. It brings awareness to the fact that I will also need to look into other ways of solving my water chemistry issues. This was such a great find. May we all find the answers we need in a timely fashion.

- Larry

 

[theMerchant]

+1 on Rowaphos

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