Keeping Phosphates at Zero?

[bignick]

Hi,

I have been running phosphate removers in media bags that sit in my filter socks for a while now and right now my fish tank has only a few fish in the tank..

5-squirrel fish
2-percula
2-GSM clowns
1-coris wrasse
1-Lawn mower blenny
1-foxface

All except for the blenny are under 3" so there isn't a whole Lotta waste being produced. I feed once every other day and it mainly consists of a pinch of spectrum small pellets and a pinch of large pellets. I have a refugium that has a good amount of cheato and green hair growing in it and i run a Precision marine bullet 2 skimmer that pulls a ton of crap out of the water. I change my flter socks every three to four days and i change my media once every two weeks and even then it still isn't ready to be changed (turns a yellowish color when its no longer active). I also use RODI water because i know tap water does have some phosphates in it.

Now with all of this going on i still can't seem to get my phosphates to zero. I mean i can get it to 0.3 or 0.2 but never 0. I have talked to a lot of people and it seems that more and more people are using phosphate reactors to keep their phosphates down.

Ever since the reactor came out i saw it as a waste of money and that it did the same thing as my phosphate in my media bags. Am i wrong? Does it do more than i thought? What do you guys do to keep your tanks at Zero for Phosphates?

As of right now the only thing i could point the finger at is that i hardly ever do water changes. Maybe once a month to every 5 weeks i do a water change. But its not like my water smells bad or anything.

Can you guys give me any insight as to what could help me get my Phosphates to zero?

Thanks,

Nick

[Engine 7]

Nick, I put off buying one also for a long time. After getting one and running it I have seen my phosphates drop to nothing and a huge decrease in diatoms and algae. I used to scrape the glass every day or so, now only once a week or so.

Jeff

[Flint&Eric]

those filter socks with the media in there is not helping. the filter socks are being changed, but crud is collecting on the media bags that are then reintroducing to the new clean filter socks.

running it in a reactor should help, but honestly with your set up i wouldnt think you'd need gfo....

[jglackin]

Thanks for starting this thread. I have been wondering the same thing. Should I continue to use filter socks with Phosban or should I use a reactor? If I go with a reactor, which one is recommended?

[bignick]

See now i am going through the tail end of a cycle right now but i hardly have to clean the glass. Maybe once every week and a half. I have a very large clean up crew in my tank and i even have a handful of snail in my overflows to keep them clean. (not by choice they just crawled in there) So i can't understand why i still have phosphates in my tank if i hardly have algae growing on the glass or rocks. Heck even the Cyano that i use to have in my fuge is starting to disappear. Could it be that i have detritus sitting under the LR in my fuge? I was thinking about pulling the rock and putting a DSB in my fuge and then placing the rock on top of that. Also should i try placing a clean up crew of some sort in my fuge?

[ppurcell]

how are you testing your water? I've used phosphate tests from Aquarium Systems, Red Sea, Seachem, and Salifert. The only one of the bunch that I had any feel at all for low end readings is the Salifert and then only on the high sensitivity test (double water, double reagents).

Your target is .045 orthophosphate (or .015 measured as phosphate-phosphorous), not zero. Your corals actually need a very small amount of phoshate, but since you are feeding dry food you will always have a phosphate supply.

As for a suggestion, instead of using the phosphate remover passively, buy a reactor like the TLF Phosban reactor and put in PhosAR or PhosAR HC (which is supposed to have more adsorbtion capacity than the regular stuff). There is a really good thread somewhere that talks about using high UV to bind phosphate to make it biologically unavailable (I think it get skimmed afterwards) but I cannot find it.

[bignick]

Well this weekend i am plannin on hooking up a 57watt UV to my tank to really break down things.

As for test kits i am not using Salifert. I should probably test with that before posting i guess. Right now i have been testing with doctor well fish. I know its not the most accurate but it gives e a ball park figure as to what i have going on in my tank and it has yet to steer me wrong.

[mm949]

try blowing out ur live rock....if its packed with dirt thats were the po4 is leaching from....

[bignick]

I tried doing that over the weekend with a rio 2100 and yeah there were a couple of spots that had some crud but i don't think there was nearly enough to keep my phosphates at the levels i am reading.

I even shined a light in my overflows to see if i had any crud down there and all i saw was some sand but even that i blew around.

In all honesty i think its sitting in my fuge.

[bignick]

Bump for more opinions.

[Engine 7]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10355957#post10355957 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mm949
try blowing out ur live rock....if its packed with dirt thats were the po4 is leaching from....

Agreed.
Every couple weeks a do about a 15% water change. I put a clean filter sock in the holder and add the new water. As I add the water I make sure it gets behind the live rock. I then use a turkey baster and blow into a few of the caves. Sometimes lots of junk blows out. After a day or so I remove the filter sock.
This has been my regiment for years.

Jeff

[bignick]

Yeah but like i said i did that with a Rio2100 and hardly anything got blown around. I mean with a dart and Four Tunze 6100s i have a ton of flow in my tank so very little gets a chance to settle anywhere.