High phosphate in new live rock tank

[GARRIGA]

Upcoming reboot will once again have coral skeletons vs sand plus dry rock and based on past experience expect high levels of phosphates and why before adding salt I'm going to run LC plus flocculant and try removing most of the particulates including running two Big Blue filters with sediment cartridges that run from 75 micron down to 1 and ensure that LC is removed once bound to phosphates. Makes overdosing easy enough with no life to be concerned with although based on prior comments seems a moot point. Live Rock Rubble later added once converted to salt and I'll just deal with any phosphate leaching naturally with algae. Not going to fuzz over that balancing act.

 

[X-37B]

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.

It wont go down without a po4 remover. I prefer a small reactor but it will work in a nylon bag.
It took 24 days to bring it down from .5 to .12. I changed media 3 times in my reactor.

I did the same with 35lbs live rock in my 50 in a nylon bag. It went from .3 to .1 in 2 weeks.

 

[BryanM]

Thanks all.

I think the safest way to go about this in my mind is a 5 micron filter sock in the sump slowly dosed, so that's what I'm going to do if I don't see phosphates natrually going down in short order.

I liked the idea of dosing directly in to the skimmer, but I still feel the filter sock to be the safest play.

 

[Uncle99]

Thanks all.

I think the safest way to go about this in my mind is a 5 micron filter sock in the sump slowly dosed, so that's what I'm going to do if I don't see phosphates natrually going down in short order.

I liked the idea of dosing directly in to the skimmer, but I still feel the filter sock to be the safest play.

I used phosphate-E and fine socks for a few days to reduce that organics level.
just finished two day reduction from .4 to .15ppm in two full days.
I used 20mls for 200g, 10ml in each sock and that reduced to .24ppm. Removed socks and replaced.
Hit another 20ml for 200g.
Now .15ppm which is back to normal running.
Stuffs not bad!
I was surprised.
Beat any GFO by far.

 

[BryanM]

I'm going to buy the LC, filter sock, etc, and have it on hand. But phosphates are slowing on the decline.

Ammonia .04
Nitrate 11.5
Phosphate .65 (2 days ago .72, no water changes/nothing changed)

going to keep monitoring for now.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Natural rock from the ocean usually contains extremely little PO4

They are all using aquacultured terrestrial rock to make live rock. Marco Rock, Florida Dry Rock, whatever you call it

I've assumed that being in the ocean for 6 months+ would pull the PO4 out

Perhaps it doesn't

 

[Dan_P]

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?

How are you measuring phosphate?

 

[SDchris]

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

In this study, the ocean water is 0.003 ppm but the water in the sand is 6 ppm.

the water column..... levels for soluble reactive phosphate were 0.21 ± 0.03 and 0.23 ± 0.04 µM for Bawe and Chapwani respectively. Pore water .......... Concentrations of soluble reactive phosphate for Chapwani and Bawe were 35 ± 11.6 µM and 66 ± 26.2 µM respectively.

 

[BryanM]

How are you measuring phosphate?

Hanna marine master

 

[Dan_P]

Hanna marine master

OK, fairly trustworthy and precise enough. Just wondering about the observed phosphate concentration, but no bright ideas.

Before adding the live rock was the phosphate trend fairly stable at 0.4 ppm (that’s what I remember you posting), like weeks?

Any chance that when you added the live rock things got stirred up and particles containing phosphate got into the test sample? These would not be obvious unless you shined a bight light through the side of test vial.

 

[BryanM]

OK, fairly trustworthy and precise enough. Just wondering about the observed phosphate concentration, but no bright ideas.

Before adding the live rock was the phosphate trend fairly stable at 0.4 ppm (that’s what I remember you posting), like weeks?

Any chance that when you added the live rock things got stirred up and particles containing phosphate got into the test sample? These would not be obvious unless you shined a bight light through the side of test vial.

Unsure on prior phospates. Prior to the live rock going in it was fresh RODI w/Red Sea Coral Pro salt. I did not have a phosphate tester then.

No chance on particles getting in with the tests I'm reporting now anyway.... All things very settled down by the time the marine master showed up at my doorstep.

 

[Dan_P]

Unsure on prior phospates. Prior to the live rock going in it was fresh RODI w/Red Sea Coral Pro salt. I did not have a phosphate tester then.

No chance on particles getting in with the tests I'm reporting now anyway.... All things very settled down by the time the marine master showed up at my doorstep.

Thanks for the info! I was hoping that a trend in phosphate would be illuminating.

 

[BryanM]

They are all using aquacultured terrestrial rock to make live rock. Marco Rock, Florida Dry Rock, whatever you call it

I've assumed that being in the ocean for 6 months+ would pull the PO4 out

Perhaps it doesn't

I'm beginning to think maybe this is true, or the study referenced is true (water in live sand @ 6ppm).

Either way I have LC in hand now, going to buy some VOSS water for dosing, and I believe my filter socks should be here tomorrow.

Since there's been very little feeding, if the phosphates are not from the live rock/sand, the only other thing I can think of is die off from the CUC... which is hard to figure out, because those critters are small and move around a lot. Visually I can only account for 1/2 of them... And I also have a mantis that's mocking me (trying to trap)... I've not seen him in 5 days, but I've heard him. I suppose he could be wreaking havoc on some of the CUC.

 

[Solo McReefer]

VOSS water

Pretty sure you're just using the cool glass container

Not the water

Correct?

 

[BryanM]

Pretty sure you're just using the cool glass container

Not the water

Correct?

Correct! I just like the idea of glass, and they look nice, and they fit, probably the most important part

 

[Solo McReefer]

Correct! I just like the idea of glass, and they look nice, and they fit, probably the most important part

They do, good for dosing a nano

I bought 4 of them back in the day

Don't have them anymore

 

[BryanM]

So, assuming the phosphate is coming from the live rock or sand, using LC, anyone have experience or a good guess how long it will take to remove the leaching, so I can get this to a more steady state?

Further indication that its leaching is the fact that I did a 30% change recently, and it crept right back up to .65...

 

[BryanM]

Using Randy's DIY LC instructions, the LC dosing has started.

Unless I screwed up, I believe 48ml is supposed to remove .5 phosphate. I have that dosing over 24 hrs in to a 1 micron filter sock.... though I have a feeling the neptune DOS schedule will end at midnight... Either way, I have a lot of wiggle room to figure out if it stops or keeps going 48ml every 24 hrs.

I also don't have any reason to believe that *1* 48ml dose is going to resolve my problem since a 30% water change ended up 24hrs later at the same .65ppm phosphate level.

 

[Stevorino]

Using Randy's DIY LC instructions, the LC dosing has started.

Unless I screwed up, I believe 48ml is supposed to remove .5 phosphate. I have that dosing over 24 hrs in to a 1 micron filter sock.... though I have a feeling the neptune DOS schedule will end at midnight... Either way, I have a lot of wiggle room to figure out if it stops or keeps going 48ml every 24 hrs.

If you take a screenshot of your Apex we can confirm how it will work, but at least in my experience, very few things in Apex aren't reoccurring... meaning if you have it set for 48ml/daily, it will keep doing that until you tell it to stop.

I also don't have any reason to believe that *1* 48ml dose is going to resolve my problem since a 30% water change ended up 24hrs later at the same .65ppm phosphate level.

I absolutely agree with this. I am continuously dosing LC in small amounts every day. I think you will find yourself likely doing the same.

My two cents, for what it's worth, is to decrease that 48ml to something like 10ml and see how it responds in ~24 hours.

With LC the name of the game is to go slow and steady. I have never had an issue with it myself, but it seems like when people do have problems it's because they went too fast.

Good luck!

 

[BryanM]

If you take a screenshot of your Apex we can confirm how it will work, but at least in my experience, very few things in Apex aren't reoccurring... meaning if you have it set for 48ml/daily, it will keep doing that until you tell it to stop.



I absolutely agree with this. I am continuously dosing LC in small amounts every day. I think you will find yourself likely doing the same.

My two cents, for what it's worth, is to decrease that 48ml to something like 10ml and see how it responds in ~24 hours.

With LC the name of the game is to go slow and steady. I have never had an issue with it myself, but it seems like when people do have problems it's because they went too fast.

Good luck!

Thanks! I already figured out that it was definitely going to keep dosing 24/7.

I'll measure tonight at the 24hr mark, and adjust as needed. I read it was safe to lower .5 a day, which is how I came up with the 48ml over 24 hrs dosing.