SPS Symptoms of high P04 levels?

[deputydog95]

Start with your iodine. It's the easiest fix. You'll be surprised at how much it takes to raise and keep levels stable.


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Agreed.

I just bought potassium and iodine test kits yesterday. Red sea.

I tried the potassium test kit. Wow, was that a pita and took forever. It's almost 20 mins of just waiting...

I'll try the iodine one today. I have the red sea trace elements but haven't been dosing them because I didn't feel comfortable adding anything without testing for it.

I guess I'll have to get the iodine worked out.

I do 10 percent water changes (red sea blue bucket) on a weekly basis and would have thought that would be taking care of the trace elements nicely. My magnesium is always a little high and I dont dose that either.

So far I've done 4 ten gallon water changes in the past ten 10 days to hopefully bring down the potassium.

Which I still can't figure out why the potassium levels are off the charts in my tank since I don't dose potassium and there isn't potassium in my AB liquids.

I tested the blue bucket mixture and it came in at around 440, freshly mixed. Would probably drop some after it sits for 24 hours I'm guessing.

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[cboltsd]

Agreed.

I just bought potassium and iodine test kits yesterday. Red sea.

I tried the potassium test kit. Wow, was that a pita and took forever. It's almost 20 mins of just waiting...

I'll try the iodine one today. I have the red sea trace elements but haven't been dosing them because I didn't feel comfortable adding anything without testing for it.

I guess I'll have to get the iodine worked out.

I do 10 percent water changes (red sea blue bucket) on a weekly basis and would have thought that would be taking care of the trace elements nicely. My magnesium is always a little high and I dont dose that either.

So far I've done 4 ten gallon water changes in the past ten 10 days to hopefully bring down the potassium.

Which I still can't figure out why the potassium levels are off the charts in my tank since I don't dose potassium and there isn't potassium in my AB liquids.

I tested the blue bucket mixture and it came in at around 440, freshly mixed. Would probably drop some after it sits for 24 hours I'm guessing.

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The Triton one gives you quite a few recommendations as to why levels may be off and suggested fixes. I'm assuming the one you used did not?

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[dubmaneh]

Agreed.

I just bought potassium and iodine test kits yesterday. Red sea.

I tried the potassium test kit. Wow, was that a pita and took forever. It's almost 20 mins of just waiting...

I'll try the iodine one today. I have the red sea trace elements but haven't been dosing them because I didn't feel comfortable adding anything without testing for it.

I guess I'll have to get the iodine worked out.

I do 10 percent water changes (red sea blue bucket) on a weekly basis and would have thought that would be taking care of the trace elements nicely. My magnesium is always a little high and I dont dose that either.

So far I've done 4 ten gallon water changes in the past ten 10 days to hopefully bring down the potassium.

Which I still can't figure out why the potassium levels are off the charts in my tank since I don't dose potassium and there isn't potassium in my AB liquids.

I tested the blue bucket mixture and it came in at around 440, freshly mixed. Would probably drop some after it sits for 24 hours I'm guessing.

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I used the Red Sea elements to raise my iodine and potassium but found aqua vitro vibrance to be much more cost effective for iodine. Still use Red Sea for potassium though.

FWIW I had to dose around 3ml of the vibrance twice per day to raise levels and then backed off to a 2.5ml daily maintenance dose. On a 60gal net volume.




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[deputydog95]

The Triton one gives you quite a few recommendations as to why levels may be off and suggested fixes. I'm assuming the one you used did not?

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No, I used ICP analysis.com out of Colorado.

I've done the Triton test before but it takes a long time to get the results.

Downside is they don't give you mich advice on how to fix it.

I did email them to confirm the results and they suggested a massive water change.

Which probably would help but I'm a little hesitant changing that much water so quickly in a SPS tank.

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[deputydog95]

I used the Red Sea elements to raise my iodine and potassium but found aqua vitro vibrance to be much more cost effective for iodine. Still use Red Sea for potassium though.

FWIW I had to dose around 3ml of the vibrance twice per day to raise levels and then backed off to a 2.5ml daily maintenance dose. On a 60gal net volume.




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So you're actually dosing daily for both Iodine and Potassium?

 

[dubmaneh]

So you're actually dosing daily for both Iodine and Potassium?

No. Potassium doesn't deplete as quickly as iodine so I only needed to dose weekly after getting levels up. I now top up my 10%wc with 5ml of Red Sea potassium.

Iodine/iodide I did dose daily for a number of weeks until ended up selling almost half of my live rock covered in mushrooms, after which I saw a drop in demand for iodine so weekly WC were keeping up. I now recognize the signs of low iodine by watching my Montiporas and will dose as needed.

I nearly went mad before i figured this out. Lol. Despite all the "œiodine is not needed" advice you read and local experts telling me otherwise, my tank needs dosing of it from time to time.

I use aquaforest salt and each bucket comes with ICP results you can get online. Not sure if Red Sea has something similar for their batches of salt, but it definitely helps to when figuring these things out as each batch is slightly different.


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[deputydog95]

So I think I have this figured out...

The SeaChem reef fusion Part 2 (alk) is the culprit. Despite SeaChem telling me there is no K in their products, I connected with someone else at SeaCheck who said that person was wrong and that there is K in the Part 2. He wanted the lot number off the bottle so he could investigate.

So I did more ICP testing... Sent in samples for the tap, RODI, tank water, and a freshly mixed batch of Red Sea blue bucket.

My K came in at 700 this time, despite changing more than the water volume in three weeks. The only thing I put in the tank is Reef Fusion and food. And I know it's not the food.

Further internet research has shown other people having the exact same problems with K once they start dosing Reef Fusion in a reasonably large volume.

I clean out dosing reservoirs and lines yesterday with distilled water and switched to Red Sea's Ca and Alk.

Now the tedious process of 2-3 10-gallon water changes a week starts again. Such a pain. It's really hard to have a big impact on K since I'm reintroducing some K with every water change. I'm just hesitant about doing a really large water change on an SPS tank.

Hoping taking the SeaChem Reef Fusion product out of the equation and lots of 10% water changes will get me straightened out in a few weeks.