Emergency!! Phosphates overdose

[ninjamyst]

My PO4 ran for 1.2+ for months. No growth on SPS and lost some color in torches. Didn't really loose any corals.

 

[BeanAnimal]

You don’t need lanthanum or anything extreme like that. Do a few water changes and run some GFO. This was a one time event, not months or years of saturation.

 

[hunterallen40]

So here's a 24 hour update.

It feels like I've been lucky so far. No short-term reaction whatsoever from my corals, fish or invertebrates.

As correctly stated above, my po4 level has come down. It currently reads 0.72. Still a huge number, but I'm happy to see it's now readable at all.

I'll do another test tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of ways I could slowly lower my po4, assuming slowly would be better in my case. Did some reading, but open to suggestions.

I'm running this nano on a canister filter and without a skimmer, so I'm a bit careful with ideas like using lanthanum chloride. Also have my doubts of using GFO in a canister filter. Another idea is using Seachem Phosguard, but don't know if this will be sufficient enough.

Also, at what rate would be best to lower my po4 levels daily or even weekly?

I think 0.72 phosphate is not as big of a deal as people consistently make it out to be. I would not proactively try to lower PO4 with things like GFO. In my experience, this usually does more harm than good. Unless you see any clear, negative reactions... I would suggest you just let it ride.

 

[jda]

Once the number stabilizes, there will be no difference in if you took years and years of overfeeding to get to this level. There will still be a massive amount of po4 bound into the rocks. My guess is that the number might go down some, but the bulk of what is going to bound has already done so.

If you want to lower it, then GFO is probably your best bet.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Once the number stabilizes, there will be no difference in if you took years and years of overfeeding to get to this level. There will still be a massive amount of po4 bound into the rocks. My guess is that the number might go down some, but the bulk of what is going to bound has already done so.

If you want to lower it, then GFO is probably your best bet.

Along nose lines. I would think that it would continue to be sequestered and drop over some period of time. Being a small system it should be easy to knock down…. Unlike some of us who run or ran masssive amounts of rock and sand and over fed for years before we realized we had a problem!

 

[EricR]

Run some GFO for a bit (((was my suggestion earlier and sticking to it)))
That said, the person to really listen to said wait and see for 48 hours and I haven't seen his follow-up from that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Along nose lines. I would think that it would continue to be sequestered and drop over some period of time. Being a small system it should be easy to knock down…. Unlike some of us who run or ran masssive amounts of rock and sand and over fed for years before we realized we had a problem!

While it will take some time to penetrate pores and deep into sand, as jda points out, it doesn’t matter too much how long it took to get there.

 

[jda]

The only difference in small and large tanks is the amount of GFO that it will take - tablespoon vs a cup, or something like that. You still have to very slowly and deliberately lower the po4, even in a nano.

You cannot put a ton of GFO into any tank and drive the water level po4 down to nearly nothing and then have it creep back up in a day or two when the aragonite unbinds back to equilibrium. Extreme up/down levels of waterborne po4 is dangerous and has caused issues for many over time - the up/down was the issue, not the lowering in general.

In the end, whether a nano or a large tank, you could be talking about scores or a hundred small treatments to lower the water level just barely enough so that the aragonite unbinding matches the rate. This could be 1/2 teaspoon changed out every day in a nano, but the process is nearly the same in a larger tank only might be 1/4 a cup.

Of course, many people do add more GFO and go faster, but this can have risks.

...so work and worry is the same, but GFO amount is definitely not.

 

[dennislagoon]

Here’s a 48 hours update from a test done yesterday. Checker read 0.64, so it’s still dropping a bit.

Think I’ll just let it ride for a while until I see a clear and steady trend down or upwards. Prior to the overdose po4 dropped about 0.01 ppm a day. Not sure if that will be the case again, since I am not sure if that uptake was because of unsaturated rock or from other processes.
But if needed, I’ll run half a teaspoon of GFO and refresh it daily like jda mentioned.

Thanks again for all the amazing info and help.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks for the update!