Phosphates? Where do they come from??

[johnfluevogs]

I want to know the story on phosphate and where they come from. I have detectable phosphates in my current reef and they get as high at 0.3-0.4 ppm and I definitely think that they have a detrimental effect on SPS corals especially.

Does anyone have an idea how they come from?

 

[Rob Top]

Two major ways they get into the tank. Food and make up water. Are you using an RO/DI filter for your top off water? If not that could be a place to start. Also what is your fish load like? How much do you feed them? These two places are where most of our problems come from.

 

[Omni2226]

Phosphate is a basic building block of life. If there is life, there is phosphate. No phosphate, no life. So getting rid of all phosphate aint going to happen unless there is no life in the water at all.

Alga has been shown to grow with as little as .002 parts per Billion phosphate in the water. So battling "bad" alga through phosphate removal isnt going to help much. As for corals they, like any life form, require some phosphates to survive. As for how much I have no clue.

Maybe set a realistic goal of say .05, and concentrate on the nitrogen cycle and oxygen levels along with proper food and see how corals do.

 

[johnfluevogs]

ok... I use RO/DI water to do water changes. According to my portable TDS meter the RO/DI water reads 0ppm. So it was my thinking that I wasn't getting them from my make up water.

As for fish.. I have a maroon and gold clown, bi-colored bleny, and a sailfin blenny.

Others incld. sand slug, emerald crab, few hermits and few snails.

As for my feeding, I generally feed mon, wed, and fri. when I first get started in this hobby over a year ago I used to feed once a day. I feed andywhere from 1/2 a block to a full block of frozen. on the off days I will dabble with cyclopeez and DT's mixing it up every so often.

The system I would say is totaling around 40 gallons including cump and refugium.

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[Meloco14]

Sounds like your makeup water is fine, but you can test it for phosphate just for peace of mind. My bet is the frozen food. The liquid part can have a lot of phosphate. I don't know your feeding process, but try thawing the cube in a little container, then strain the food through a fine mesh net to get the liquid out. Then add some selcon or other vitamins if you want, and use that to feed the tank. See if that helps. If you use any liquid coral food or phytoplankton that may also have phosphate. I believe that low phosphates help SPS growth and coloration, but you still need a little present. I run a phosban reactor very slowly and it keeps the levels pretty low. I have noticed better colors since installing the reactor. HTH

 

[johnfluevogs]

I have run a phosphate reactor myself but found that it lowered my alk levels considerably. Could I be useing it wrong?

 

[FB]

I saw this thread yesterday and when I tested my water last night my phosphates were a lot higher than they were before. The only thing I did was a water change and have been trying to feed my new anemone. I've tested the water and dosen't measure any phosphates. Last night I thought I would test the food. I put half a cube of frozen food into a glass. I added some aquarium water. Let the solution settle so all the food went to the bottom of the glass. I then took some of the top water from the glass to test. The results were off the chart in a matter of seconds. Not two minutes like the test says.

So I'm going to start straining my food.

FB