refugium help.. high phosphate

[shamoo]

Hello reefers

I need some advise on my refugium. My tank is 6months old and I've been suffering with high phosphate 0.5 (using hanna) and as a result i have had diatoms outbreak which has gone. Now i have 2 types of green algae. 1 is green fine hair algae and the other is thicker and a very small amout of red slime alage, also i had 1 green bubble which i removed while performing a 15% water change. i can only put this down to high phospahte which i'm struggling to lower. i've performed water changes with RODI water (0.3ppm) but the phosphate creeps back up. my levels are quite stable at:
nitrate - 5
nitrite - 0
ph - 8
dkh - 6.8 - needs to be higher which i'm working on
calcium - 420
mag - 1250

I've added a refugium about 4 weeks ago. I added a full spectrum light to promote growth, and the chaeto has got more dense and is about the size of a fist, yet still not having much effect on the phosphate. Also it has green hair algae growing on it,which i take off. i don't have any copepods in yet, do they eat algae or phosphate? i will be adding them in the next couple of weeks for the wrasse and copperband when i get it.

here is a bit of info to assist.

My DT lights are on timers, mon-fri on at 15:30 to 21:30, sat & sun, on at 10:30 - 21:30, night mode (blue only) comes on at 21:15 off 23:30.

Sump light (full spectrum) comes on daily at 23:30 off 11:30.

feeding (see sig for fish + 2 peacock wrasse. all fish smaller than 3")
mon - fri about 1 cube of mysis (mixture of mysis, nano, etc,, but equals to 1 cube) sat & sun same 1 cube but i add flakes morning & evening. about 80-90% of the food gets eaten.

Sooooo does anyone have any insight to whats going on? is the refugium acting as it should? is the size of the chaeto too small to effect the phosphate? how quickly should it grow? is green hair algae growing on chaeto common?

any advise is appriciated, i have read many posts hence why i'm giving you my lighting and feeding set up.i just can't seem to lower the phosphate with the refugium. i do not dose anything. i know i could add a carbon reactor but i need some po3 to feed the refugium plus i want to understand whats causing the high po3 and tackle that,not just rely on dosing...

many thanks :thumbsup:

 

[Sk8r]

Are you using ro/di and could you have an expired ro/di cylinder? Did you use all live or conditioned rock? Dry rock and sand can bring in phosphate. You need something like gfo to absorb that. Granulated Ferric Oxide. binds phosphate. But saturates. A phosphate reactor such as that from Two Little Fishies (Phosban) or the like will take care of that. The situation you describe is too much, likely, for a refugium to take down on its own. The refugium is more to handle small occasional influxes of phosphate from food and the like.

 

[NO3]

PO4 usually points directly to poor water being used up front.....2nd is the fish food you're using is loaded with PO4

Many foods for humans and pets are sprayed with PO4 at the Processing Plant bc PO4 coated on food PERSERVES freshness

 

[LeJeune981]

My concern is the op mentioned ro/di at 3ppm.. I'm assuming that us the tds reading..

I only use 0 ppm ro/di because it's not known what those 3ppm could be

Have you ever tested your ro/di water for p04?

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[LeJeune981]

I also recommend looking into an algae turf scrubber.. there are a couple versions but in my opinion the upflow ATS is pretty easy to DIY ... and it really helped ALOT with my algae battle.. I credit the scrubber to winning the war

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[Timfish]

Your system is still maturing, all I would do is manual removal during small weekly or biweekly water changes. Corals and algae are competing for nitrogen and phosphate and what I do in my systems is add easy to keep corals as quickly as possible. And be careful about removing too much PO4, keep it above .03 mg/l to avoid a phosphate deficiency which can make your corals very photosensitive and temperature sensitive. And here's a good video by a curator at the Stienhart Aquarium:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRIKW-9d2xI

 

[shamoo]

My concern is the op mentioned ro/di at 3ppm.. I'm assuming that us the tds reading..

I only use 0 ppm ro/di because it's not known what those 3ppm could be

Have you ever tested your ro/di water for p04?

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0.3ppm from a tds meter.
and i will be testing the ro/di water when my new batch of testing powder comes.

 

[shamoo]

PO4 usually points directly to poor water being used up front.....2nd is the fish food you're using is loaded with PO4

Many foods for humans and pets are sprayed with PO4 at the Processing Plant bc PO4 coated on food PERSERVES freshness

i always rinse the fish food using a small amount of DT water. before i feed the fish. Any recomondation of food? is pellets better than frozen?

 

[LeJeune981]

I prefer frozen... it's a pita having to rinse it every time.. but pellets are so concentrated nutrient wise... a few uneaten is the equivalent of alot of nutrients...where frozen is mostly water..i seen a brs video that explaines that way better.. on the 52 weeks of reefing series..

I also have picky eaters.. only fish in my tank that will touch a pellet is my clowns lol

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[Pslreefer]

Pretty typical on a 6 month old tank. Run some gfo but it's really best for the tank to mature and let things balance out.

 

[Daddi0]

From my research, rinsing food does very little. I would get your rodi sorted out and cut the fish food back by at least 1/2.
Cheers! Mark

 

[Daddi0]

Here is the article by Randy Holmes-Farley:https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry

 

[shamoo]

thanks everyone... my plan is to dose a very small amount in a one off to get rid of the phosphate, then add a gfo reactor to get the levels to around 0.2 then hopefully the refugium will take care of the rest.

with regards to ro/di i thought upto 0.4 was acceptable? my issue is it starts at 0ppm then after about 30g its risen to 0.3ppm then stays there. i have only recently changed the filters. maybe the cartridges im using are no good? i'll test my rodi water for phosphate as soon as my testing powder arrives.

thanks again everyone

 

[shamoo]

I didn't want to start a new thread as my issue is still ongoing.
I have added a dual GFO (phosphate & Carbon) and started dosing. My phospahte level has dropped. all tested using Hanna digital testing
02/06/18 = 0.613, ALK = 6.6
16/07/18 = 0.110, ALK = 8.4

Currently red slime algae is trying to take over the tank, i'm fighting it on a daily basis to clean it. I took the refugium out (maybe a mistake), i think the cheato algae had died and the sump was being over run by green hair algae. i am putting the refugium back into action this week. my thoughts behind taking it out was the full spectrum light was feeding the hair algae more than the chaeto and it looked really dirty and wasn't growing, plus the phosphate wasn't dropping..
I have a couple of questions if you will.

Are your refugiums dirty with algae?
What level should the phosphate be before the refugium will be benificial?
Lastly, again what's the best thing to tackle red slime algae?

i'm aiming at phosphate level 0.02, the lowest i managed was 0.08, i'm currently still using the gfo and dosing untill i get the desired level, i just hope red slime goes when the levels get to the correct level as its driving me crazy!!!

thanks

 

[JoeTSI]

I let whatever wants to grow, grow in my refugium. Better there than the DT.

 

[reefgeezer]

What carbon source are you dosing? I believe some promote red slime more than others. Personally, I've found vinegar to be the least offensive of the carbon sources.

Don't forget to check your nitrates in this process. If they are driven to zero the carbon dosing process will be limited. If that happens, phosphates will rise or remain level regardless of how much of the carbon source you add. I operate on the theory that this also creates more dissolved organic compounds that promotes the red slime.

 

[shamoo]

i'm dosing using RED SEA REEF-SPEC CARBON ACTIVATED, my nitrates are at 10. in a couple of days i will buy some more chaeto and let it be. hoping the po3 continues to fall...fingers crossed

 

[reefgeezer]

i'm dosing using RED SEA REEF-SPEC CARBON ACTIVATED, my nitrates are at 10. in a couple of days i will buy some more chaeto and let it be. hoping the po3 continues to fall...fingers crossed

"Carbon Dosing" and using activated carbon as a filtration method are completely different processes.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

It sounds like you're in the typical 6-7 month algae phase. I carbon dosed my tank before the one year mark and got cyano bacteria. The ecosystem in your tank is still developing and unstable. Chaeto and other macros compete with undesirable algae for nutrients, so yes, I think it's a good idea to keep some (a lot even). I see no mention of herbivores-they can help. Relentless manual removal, keeping your macros clean and Mother Nature's little helpers will get you through the battle.