Phosphate and Filtration cleaning

[mr.lordacan]

Hi all,
I’ve been trying to lower phosphates for about 2 months now via phosgaurd. This past weekend I’ve realized that a big part of my phosphate problem was likely due to overcrowding of my AIO chambers, causing a large buildup of detritus. It didn’t look bad at first, but decided to do a deep clean. Once started, I quickly realized how dirty my AIO chambers actually were…

anyways, I started at 0.15 phosphates (Hanna ULR). Cleaned all chambers and did water change (20%) this morning. Following all that, I’m reading a phosphate level of 0.21 as of this evening.

Could this increase in phosphates be due to the recent cleaning and disturbing of all the detritus that was once hanging out in my AIO chambers?

 

[Spare time]

It sounds more like a testing error to me (either the earlier or later value). The crud was already in the tank so I doubt the stirring did anything.

If you have a lot of detritus there, you might want to re-evaluate the mechanical filtration.

 

[mr.lordacan]

It sounds more like a testing error to me (either the earlier or later value). The crud was already in the tank so I doubt the stirring did anything.

If you have a lot of detritus there, you might want to re-evaluate the mechanical filtration.

Thanks. I’ll retest this morning before feeding. I think the Hanna ULR has a +/- 0.02 ppm accuracy, so probably overthinking it.

I did address the issue with my filtration process. When I set up my tank I had a bunch of leftover rock rubble. Figured it would be worth keeping them in the back chambers since they fit. Logic being more rock the better. After some googling I realized this isn’t the case, and it creates one big detritus catcher… whoops! So my AIO is rock free now lol

 

[Dburr1014]

Hi all,
I’ve been trying to lower phosphates for about 2 months now via phosgaurd. This past weekend I’ve realized that a big part of my phosphate problem was likely due to overcrowding of my AIO chambers, causing a large buildup of detritus. It didn’t look bad at first, but decided to do a deep clean. Once started, I quickly realized how dirty my AIO chambers actually were…

anyways, I started at 0.15 phosphates (Hanna ULR). Cleaned all chambers and did water change (20%) this morning. Following all that, I’m reading a phosphate level of 0.21 as of this evening.

Could this increase in phosphates be due to the recent cleaning and disturbing of all the detritus that was once hanging out in my AIO chambers?

Water changes and cleaning most likely will not help the po4 numbers. They will help the nitrates.
Phosphates will get bound to the sand/rocks and it takes a long while to bring it down.

What are you feeding the tank?

 

[mr.lordacan]

Water changes and cleaning most likely will not help the po4 numbers. They will help the nitrates.
Phosphates will get bound to the sand/rocks and it takes a long while to bring it down.

What are you feeding the tank?

Yep, that’s what I figured since it’s been an ongoing battle. It started much higher (0.60), but have gotten it down to about 0.15-0.2 range in recent weeks. Currently I feed 2x a day alternating frozen hikari brine shrimp and mysis shrimp (I forget which brand). I also does 3-4ml of Red Sea ab plus daily.

 

[Spare time]

Thanks. I’ll retest this morning before feeding. I think the Hanna ULR has a +/- 0.02 ppm accuracy, so probably overthinking it.

I did address the issue with my filtration process. When I set up my tank I had a bunch of leftover rock rubble. Figured it would be worth keeping them in the back chambers since they fit. Logic being more rock the better. After some googling I realized this isn’t the case, and it creates one big detritus catcher… whoops! So my AIO is rock free now lol

Yeah I had a similar issue with filling my refugium with biomedia, not realizing it would make it a detritus waste land haha