High phosphate in new live rock tank

[BryanM]

A few days ago phosphates were .62, today they are .72, and that is after a 10% water change prior to the .72 measurement. Nitrates 13.

Tank was stocked with 150 pounds of live rock, 100 pounds of live sand,, from GulfLiveRock.

There's a medium size clean up crew from saltwateraquarium.com. There are two cleaner shrimp which appear to be doing fine. I also now know from the live rock delivery (overnight airfrieght to try and minimize dieoff), that I put two mantis shrimp in the tank, which I'm now going to have to trap to get them out.

Last, there's a hammer and favia coral, also seem to be doing fine.

So its not a feeding issue, as I don't feed at the moment. Lots of posts from people wondering if their live rock is leaching phosphates out, but i've not found anything to indicate that's a known issue from the folks at gulfliverock.

snails and crabs are moving around all over the tank and cleaning up the smallish algae issue I got them for, which is not getting worse.

I thought the smallish water change would have at least lowered the phosphates a little, and was quite surprised when I tested today that they are up instead of down.

Thoughts?

 

[KrisReef]

Possible Sources
Leaching rock
Leaching sand
Dying organisms/ funk on Liverock & sand
Or a combination of all 3 sources.

I have measure low levels on dead (quarry) coral
and liverock from other peoples break downs
But I have never measured it from sand, but presume it could be adhered to that as well as rock size chucks of aragonite.

I use lanthanum chloride to remove excess.

General method: Test P
add 5 drops, or 5 caps (depending on the water volumn) and retest.
adjust dose to move the phosphate concentration towards 50% of zero. Retest to find new level
Wait a day, retest, to see where it landed and if it has bounced up again.

carefully figure out how much seems to be present and move it towards zero +, but avoid going to zero.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but hopefully it will give you an idea if you decide to use LC. I try to use it in a bucket before the rock goes in the tank, but I also will use it in the tank, carefully and never moving as fast as in the bucket.

 

[sjfishguy]

I would never add dry rock to a tank without treating it with LC to be sure and test in buckets as said above. Saves you so much aggravation in the long run

 

[Miami Reef]

No need to overthink or panic. Phosphate isn’t deadly. The source is likely from the rocks.

Lanthanum chloride or GFO are two fantastic options for reducing PO4. I think lanthanum chloride is the better choice because it’s easier and inexpensive.

This is the source to purchase from:
Lanthanum Chloride Heptahydrate, AR Grade, 99.95+%, 25g
https://a.co/d/hsS786w

This is the recipe and dosing instructions: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-lanthanum-dosing.969669/

 

[X-37B]

A few days ago phosphates were .62, today they are .72, and that is after a 10% water change prior to the .72 measurement. Nitrates 13.

Tank was stocked with 150 pounds of live rock, 100 pounds of live sand,, from GulfLiveRock.

There's a medium size clean up crew from saltwateraquarium.com. There are two cleaner shrimp which appear to be doing fine. I also now know from the live rock delivery (overnight airfrieght to try and minimize dieoff), that I put two mantis shrimp in the tank, which I'm now going to have to trap to get them out.

Last, there's a hammer and favia coral, also seem to be doing fine.

So its not a feeding issue, as I don't feed at the moment. Lots of posts from people wondering if their live rock is leaching phosphates out, but i've not found anything to indicate that's a known issue from the folks at gulfliverock.

snails and crabs are moving around all over the tank and cleaning up the smallish algae issue I got them for, which is not getting worse.

I thought the smallish water change would have at least lowered the phosphates a little, and was quite surprised when I tested today that they are up instead of down.

Thoughts?

My ext 170 with 150lbs GLR got up to .5 at around 1 month. I added Phosgaurd and it brought it down to <.1.
It stabilized at 2 months with phosgaurd.
has stayed between .05-1.2 for around a month now with no Phosgaurd. Tanks 3 months old now.
I did the same with my ext50 and 35lbs of GLR and bagged sand.

Give it some time and think about a po4 reducer.

 

[BryanM]

I would never add dry rock to a tank without treating it with LC to be sure and test in buckets as said above. Saves you so much aggravation in the long run

It was live rock, not dry

 

[Stevorino]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

In a scenario where you are cooking live rock, what would be the downside of intentionally overdosing LC?

Would it accelerate the process of unbinding phosphate, and/or cause other issues?

 

[BryanM]

No need to overthink or panic. Phosphate isn’t deadly. The source is likely from the rocks.

Lanthanum chloride or GFO are two fantastic options for reducing PO4. I think lanthanum chloride is the better choice because it’s easier and inexpensive.

This is the source to purchase from:
Lanthanum Chloride Heptahydrate, AR Grade, 99.95+%, 25g
https://a.co/d/hsS786w

This is the recipe and dosing instructions: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-lanthanum-dosing.969669/

Should I go down this road can I assume having both a reefmat and a skimmer is plenty sufficient to capture what the LC is doing?

 

[Miami Reef]

Should I go down this road can I assume having both a reefmat and a skimmer is plenty sufficient to capture what the LC is doing?

I believe so. @Thales only uses a skimmer and very slowly adds it. He reports no issues. He made a reply in the recipe thread I posted.

@Randy Holmes-Farley

In a scenario where you are cooking live rock, what would be the downside of intentionally overdosing LC?

Would it accelerate the process of unbinding phosphate, and/or cause other issues?

I know I’m not Randy, but I thought I could help. If you refer to “cooking” rock as having the rock in a separate bin, it depends.

Dosing larger amounts will desorb the PO4 very quickly, in a few days, IMO. Bacteria shouldn’t be affected.

However, lanthanum particles can clog the filtration cavities found in sponges and other filter feeders commonly found in live rock. If you want to preserve those, I would add the rock into the display and slowly reduce the PO4 over time. You can use GFO in the “cooking” method to preserve the filter feeders.

Natural rock from the ocean usually contains extremely little PO4 since the ocean usually is 0.01ppm or less.

If, for whatever reason, your rock has higher PO4, it won’t damage anything to reduce it in the display slowly. PO4 isn’t toxic; stunning tanks with PO4 higher than 1 ppm exist.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

In a scenario where you are cooking live rock, what would be the downside of intentionally overdosing LC?

Would it accelerate the process of unbinding phosphate, and/or cause other issues?

I do not know what might be killed by high lanthanum (if anything), but the removal of phosphate would be faster and more complete with more lanthanum.

 

[Stevorino]

I believe so. @Thales only uses a skimmer and very slowly adds it. He reports no issues. He made a reply in the recipe thread I posted.

I know I’m not Randy, but I thought I could help. If you refer to “cooking” rock as having the rock in a separate bin, it depends.

Dosing larger amounts will desorb the PO4 very quickly, in a few days, IMO. Bacteria shouldn’t be affected.

However, lanthanum particles can clog the filtration cavities found in sponges and other filter feeders commonly found in live rock. If you want to preserve those, I would add the rock into the display and slowly reduce the PO4 over time. You can use GFO in the “cooking” method to preserve the filter feeders.

Natural rock from the ocean usually contains extremely little PO4 since the ocean usually is 0.01ppm or less.

If, for whatever reason, your rock has higher PO4, it won’t damage anything to reduce it in the display slowly. PO4 isn’t toxic; stunning tanks with PO4 higher than 1 ppm exist.

All good stuff - thanks!

I just moved homes and have been cooking my existing rockwork as I get the tank & fish room ready. It's been amazing to see how much phosphate I had binded up in this rockwork, which is no real surprise as I had been fighting the worst GHA I've seen in my 10+ years of reefing.

I have been manually dosing LC, and doing periodic water changes as well.... Every couple weeks the phosphate will be back up to 1.0+

I'm about 2 weeks out from being ready to rescape and it hit me yesterday that overloading the LC may help move things along before it's time to get the display up and running.

 

[BryanM]

So in my case, brand new live rock from GulfLiveRock, overnight to California, picked up at 9:30 am at the airport, and in the tank by 11;30am. All in an effort to reduce die off (dang I was the dang mantis shrimp avoiding my trap would have died, he's mocking me).

I read all these posts about keeping next to no Phosphate in the tank, so mine seems quite high at .72... But you read naturally that there's very low phospate in the ocean. Then you read all these people claiming their live rock is leaching phospate.

I'm new to this, but from what I've read, now 6 weeks in, using live (not dry) rock, I would have thought my phosphates would be lowering, not rising.

Two cleaner shrimp, 3 corals (one died, the other two seem quite fine), and a 50 snail/crab cleanup crew are all that's been added. CUC was after a small algea outbreak, which oddly was immediately after I fed a small amount of food (again because I'm new, and I was worried that maybe the cleaner shrimp needed it).

Mentally I'm also in the I do not want to chase numbers camp, and I wouldn't, except for the small algae outbreak and the one coral that died (the other hammer actually appears to be growing).

I'm likely going to dose LC in to my skimmer, to help lower this, but I kinda feel I shouldn't have to. I almost wonder if my phosphate issue is some of the CUC dieing, and some initial die off from the live rock, and I just need to be more patient - But I haven't really come across any threads that directly talk about this.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I read all these posts about keeping next to no Phosphate in the tank, so mine seems quite high at .72... But you read naturally that there's very low phospate in the ocean. Then you read all these people claiming their live rock is leaching phospate.

That is typically from curing or previous exposure to high phosphate.

Live rock directly from the ocean will not release large amounts of phosphate.

Why do you think foods are not your source? They typically are.

 

[BryanM]

That is typically from curing or previous exposure to high phosphate.

Live rock directly from the ocean will not release large amounts of phosphate.

Why do you think foods are not your source? They typically are.

Only because I have no fish, just the two cleaner shrimp and clean up crew, and I have fed *1* time since starting this tank. I fed a pinch of flake food, day after we got the cleaner shrimp, because I was worried that they might need it.

since then the only other "Food" that's been in the tank has been bait for trying to catch two mantis. One was caught, one mocks me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Only because I have no fish, just the two cleaner shrimp and clean up crew, and I have fed *1* time since starting this tank. I fed a pinch of flake food, day after we got the cleaner shrimp, because I was worried that they might need it.

What phosphate level?

It may just be from die off in holding tanks.

 

[BryanM]

What phosphate level?

It may just be from die off in holding tanks.

A week ago it was .62, two days ago after a small water change (10g), its up to .72 - And the reason I even started looking was because the one hammer coral died. The other, put in at the same time, seems to be doing great.

 

[Waters]

To those talking about not adding dry rock....he added all live.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

A week ago it was .62, two days ago after a small water change (10g), its up to .72 - And the reason I even started looking was because the one hammer coral died. The other, put in at the same time, seems to be doing great.

That does not seem excessive and may be from foods, which can release as much as 0.4 ppm per day.

Aquarium Chemistry: Phosphate And Math: Yes You Need To Understand Both

Foods are by far the most important source of phosphate in most aquariums. In considering whether sources of phosphate other than foods are important, one must carefully look to the actual amounts involved to determine whether other sources are even worth trying to minimize.

reefs.com

 

[X-37B]

A week ago it was .62, two days ago after a small water change (10g), its up to .72 - And the reason I even started looking was because the one hammer coral died. The other, put in at the same time, seems to be doing great.

Its just from die off. Same occured on my previous posts 170.
Imo just add some po4 remover and bring it down slowly.
I have no experience with LC.
Gfo or Phosgaurd will bring it down slowly over time if used in small amounts to start.

 

[BryanM]

Its just from die off. Same occured on my previous posts 170.
Imo just add some po4 remover and bring it down slowly.
I have no experience with LC.
Gfo or Phosgaurd will bring it down slowly over time if used in small amounts to start.

Any advice on how patient I need to be? I am figuring too it is from die off, I just expected it to start going down by now. The coral that died also bothered me, but the other two seem quite happy.