Really High phosphate problem

[EnderG60]

Ok so there is a guy that comes into work witha 125g reef, with ALOT of fish, i mean 40-45 fish. he had been doing 50% water changes weekly to keep the nitrates at "Safe" levels and wound up making and installing a sulfter denitrator.

Now the denitrator worked wonderfully, nitrates are now at 0, and he has increased his feeding(lots of plantonovors(sp?))

But He came in last week saying his corals were looking not so good, and after testing his phosphates were 10!...not .1 or even 1 but 10 mg/L.

After doing 3 50% water changes, and starting to dose with some phosphate remover(still wondering if that stuff works) his levels are still high but not holy crap high.

We figured, his high bio load was producing relativly equal amounts of nitrate and phosphate and his water changes had been "treating" them both, but since the install of the reactor the nitrates were taken care of but the phosphates were not and built up.

So Im wondering what he might be able to do to control his phophates. Is there some kind of reactor similar to the sulfter that would work?

I also recommended he make/install a remote DBS, since all his filtration is in the basement and he has acylic laying around it wouldnt be to hard to make something with a large surface area. Now I had heard that substrates can bind to phosphates...is this true and what kinds of substrates would do this, and would it be to an extent that would be worth while?

 

[outy]

he doesnt need a dsb with a denitrator

he needs lots of rowaphos,phosguard or phosban in a small phos reactor

or a simple fuge

 

[jake2045]

I have heard that NORI has a very high phosphate content, he maybe increasing his PO4 levels by just feeding the fish. After all NORI is just seaweed that used phosphate as a food source at one time.

 

[EnderG60]

I was under the impression a phosphate reactor wouldnt be able to handle the levels he would need. Since phosphates of .1 are comisdered high. And he would need to spend some seriouse $$$ to keep the media changed enough.....

Im sure its coming from feeding and fish waste, but as i said he has lots of fish that need lots of feeding.

Is there some other kind of chemical reactor that would work more along the lines of the sulfer denitrator but for phosphates? Or is using tons of phosgard/rowaphos the only real solution?

 

[Puffdragon]

Build a big fuge and sell all the macro that grows.

 

[outy]

ok so to save media cost do a few very large water changes and a fuge has no media and is also cheap to set up.

there are no effective phos denitrator style reactors that i know

 

[papagimp]

My phosphate used to run that high for the longest time, I tried phosphate removers but like these guys just stated, the upkeep was too costly, I use a simple refugium stocked w/ cheato now, havn't been able to detect any phosphate in a while, and I do feed heavily.

 

[EnderG60]

alrighty then algea scrubber/fuge it is.

he is more then likly going to take all the macro we have at the store now

 

[outy]

nope 1 small ball of chaeto will be one large one in a few weeks lol

 

[FelipeBastos]

Tell him to try PhosAr, by Warner Marine.

That's what I used before setting up a large fuge, and it worked really well.

Felipe

 

[Krustylove]

A fuge with cheato is always a good idea to fight phosphate spikes, but what do you guys think about keeping the calcium levels so high that phosphate precipitates more rapidly out of the system- I mean just until the fuge gets stable enough to handle the tanks bioload?