Siporax, low nitrates, and high phosphate.

[itz frank]

So, my display is a 130 gallon with approx 30 gallon sump. I'm running two litre of siporaX. I added Anthias just after thanks giving and I started noticing my validas were unhappy. Today, unnoticed a decrease in alk consumption. So I ran some tests. Nitrates are under 4 if not zero. Phosphates were .58! Cyano has been increasing. I have doubled my feedings for the new fish.

What's going to be my best course of action? I don't run gfo or any carbon.

I'm simply skimmer and siporax. That's all. Sps dominated reef. Colors are very good. Again, only concern was that alk consumption has dropped.

Do I dose nitrate? Run gfo? Start carbon dosing?

I've run probidio when I started up the tank as was happy with it. I could return to that as well.


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[Big E]

Run some GFO........use half the recommened amount and go slow. I'd run it for 6-8 hours and see where you're at and take a break. Fire it up like that for a handful of days. You want to knock the P04 level down in small increaments..........think stair stepping it down.

From my experiences growth slows dramatically above .30ppm..........I never saw color affected. I'd target .10ppm or below.

You should see your alk consumption go back up once you knock that down and get it stable.

The other options aren't really viable.......your nitrates aren't a problem, so carbon dosing will only cause a nitrate limited situation and not lower phosphates.

Once you get P04 down you can try carbon dosing, but I'd just stick with the GFO.

 

[bertoni]

The alkalinity consumption might have dropped due to inhibition of stony coral growth caused by the higher phosphate level. I'd probably start with some GFO, although that tank is fairly larger, and it might take a lot of media. You could give it a shot. The media might need to be replaced every day or two at first, due to the high phosphate level. Lanthanum chloride can reduce the cost quite a bit, although it's more tedious to use.

 

[jpas]

2 liters of siporax is too little for your water volume. I'm running 6l with 100g water volume. It takes 2 to 3 months for it to seed