Phosphate removal

[eddi]

I am experiencing a severe Phospate problem in my 125 and it must be related to overfeeding as I have a thriving refugium and my RO/DI tested clean.

I am going to start an aggressive phophate removal campaign with a remover and water changes. I also want to make sure I have the correct macro algae growing. In addition to feather and grape caulerpa, are there any that are better than others at absorbing phosphates?


Thanks,

Eddi

 

[mrrrkva]

It sounds like your on your way to a good start to solve problem. Anything dead or dying in your tank? You said RODI tested clean, did you directly test it for phosphates? Do you have a heavy bioload?

 

[eddi]

I don't think I have anything dead, all my fish are accounted for. I only tested my RO/DI water for phosphates this morning, I will run a full set of tests this evening.

It has to be overfeeding. I only have a small Chevron, a small Foxface, two small clowns and a Longnose Hawk and I feed less than a frozen cube of mysis and a few tiny pieces of krill/squid for my shrimps; however I do have a Sun coral and a feather starfish so I am feeding about a pencil's eraser portion (or a little bit more) of Cyclop-eeze every night.

I don't know when the phosphate problem started but the first time I noticed my corals declining was before I added the starfish.


Eddi