PO4 deficiency

[Char.toombes]

I have a 40g cube I’ve had running for 10 months now and I’m having a continuing issue with low PO4. Using the salifert test, my levels are almost undetectable. It’s started to affect my sps frags and seems to be killing my favias. I feed heavy atleast 1x a day of frozen mysis or pellets and I was running my aquamaxx hob 1.5 skimmer full time for pH boost but I have in the past week set it up for only running while lights are off (12hrs a day). My bioload is a pair of clowns, small goby/pistol shrimp pair, and an assort CUC. I will be adding a yellow wrasse tomorrow however. I’m currently dosing about 5.2ml of Neophos daily which should increase my tank by .04ppm daily which is max bottle recommends. How long until I can see consistency in my PO4 and how long does it generally take to see the effects of it improving? I realize results vary, but maybe some of you guys can give me your input on your specific situations and how you dealt with it/your results.

I appreciate any constructive input!

 

[Char.toombes]

Water parameters are as follows:
pH 8.0-8.3
SG 1.024
PO4 <0.03ppm
NO3 8-11
CA 460
kH 8.5
Mag 1415

 

[Pkunk35]

I started with dry rock also and felt like my rock and sand was absorbing my neophos for quite a while until it showed a reading in the water using a Hannah low phosphate. I forgot the dosage but it was weeks of light daily dosing; there was also a thread here where many others shared this same experience. And 1x mysis cube a day sounds like a lot for that bioload! Might be other deleterious effects from so much food.
also just an opinion but I’ve def dumped more than 0.04 worth of brightwell neophos into the tank without any noticeable affect.

if it were my tank I would turn the skimmer off, lighten my feed, slightly increase my dose of PO4 daily until a reading, maybe even skip a WC until I do. Def no more sps and lps until this po4 stabilizes imo, I’ve lost more torches than I care to count to what I think was po4 bottoming out.

 

[Char.toombes]

I started with dry rock also and felt like my rock and sand was absorbing my neophos for quite a while until it showed a reading in the water using a Hannah low phosphate. I forgot the dosage but it was weeks of light daily dosing; there was also a thread here where many others shared this same experience. And 1x mysis cube a day sounds like a lot for that bioload! Might be other deleterious effects from so much food.
also just an opinion but I’ve def dumped more than 0.04 worth of brightwell neophos into the tank without any noticeable affect.

if it were my tank I would turn the skimmer off, lighten my feed, slightly increase my dose of PO4 daily until a reading, maybe even skip a WC until I do. Def no more sps and lps until this po4 stabilizes imo, I’ve lost more torches than I care to count to what I think was po4 bottoming out.

I’m sorry I should specify I’m thawing half a cube of frozen mysis and feeding from that for up 3-4 days, and I’ll substitute pellets when I don’t feel like thawing the mysis.
And okay I’ll give the no skimmer a try, and I’m not doing any WC as of now for the foreseeable future. Definitely not risking any new frags until as well, losing my dragon soul favia and now this one is heartbreaking to watch.

 

[Reef.]

You should not be increasing po4 based off a salifert test kit, Salifert is next to useless to judge po4 below 0.1.

You need a Hanna phosphate checker (774), only then will you be getting a reliable test result.

From the look of your tank, your po4 doesn’t need increasing.

 

[killer2001]

Make sure if you have any dinos in the tank you take care of that first. My 45 gallon was doing good on nutrient levels, about 10-15ppm NO3 and 0.05 to 0.1ppm PO4. Then dinos took over for about a week, all over the sand and rock and kept bottoming out my PO4. Once I manually removed most of the dinos and started dosing PO4 back up to the acceptable range, my tank is looking much better.

 

[Reef.]

Make sure if you have any dinos in the tank you take care of that first. My 45 gallon was doing good on nutrient levels, about 10-15ppm NO3 and 0.05 to 0.1ppm PO4. Then dinos took over for about a week, all over the sand and rock and kept bottoming out my PO4. Once I manually removed most of the dinos and started dosing PO4 back up to the acceptable range, my tank is looking much better.

If you got dinos when your po4 was in the range of 0.05-0.1 what lvl did you dose up to? as most people would say 0.05-0.1 was an acceptable range, any higher would be considered too high generally.

I would be surprised if they were Dinos as dinos are hard to get rid off, hanging around for months, some people get so stressed with them they break down their tanks, so coming and going within a week and also when your po4 was in the range of 0.05-0.1 makes me think it wasn’t dinos.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I have a 40g cube I’ve had running for 10 months now and I’m having a continuing issue with low PO4. Using the salifert test, my levels are almost undetectable. It’s started to affect my sps frags and seems to be killing my favias. I feed heavy atleast 1x a day of frozen mysis or pellets and I was running my aquamaxx hob 1.5 skimmer full time for pH boost but I have in the past week set it up for only running while lights are off (12hrs a day). My bioload is a pair of clowns, small goby/pistol shrimp pair, and an assort CUC. I will be adding a yellow wrasse tomorrow however. I’m currently dosing about 5.2ml of Neophos daily which should increase my tank by .04ppm daily which is max bottle recommends. How long until I can see consistency in my PO4 and how long does it generally take to see the effects of it improving? I realize results vary, but maybe some of you guys can give me your input on your specific situations and how you dealt with it/your results.

I appreciate any constructive input!

Even if you double the sample and reagents, the Salifert test is not useful under 0.1 ppm.

It will appear clear even if you have 0.1 ppm if you use the standard instructions.

 

[Char.toombes]

You should not be increasing po4 based off a salifert test kit, Salifert is next to useless to judge po4 below 0.1.

You need a Hanna phosphate checker (774), only then will you be getting a reliable test result.

From the look of your tank, your po4 doesn’t need increasing.

Will be picking up a Hanna tester and go from there. I’m just not sure what could be causing the stress and death on my Lps/SPS frags if not this. All my other parameters have been pretty stable for a while now.

 

[Char.toombes]

Make sure if you have any dinos in the tank you take care of that first. My 45 gallon was doing good on nutrient levels, about 10-15ppm NO3 and 0.05 to 0.1ppm PO4. Then dinos took over for about a week, all over the sand and rock and kept bottoming out my PO4. Once I manually removed most of the dinos and started dosing PO4 back up to the acceptable range, my tank is looking much better.

I still haven’t been able to get a microscope to look at what’s growing on my sandbed but if it is Dino’s it’s a very thin greenish film of it. Haven’t been able to have sandbed cleaned in months, I started redosing mb7 for now in conjunction with Neophos so it see if it’ll help

 

[vetteguy53081]

Water parameters are as follows:
pH 8.0-8.3
SG 1.024
PO4 <0.03ppm
NO3 8-11
CA 460
kH 8.5
Mag 1415

While .03-.04 is my desired range, zero will invite dinos, while high levels invite cyano.
Feeding corals foods such as reef roids will increase phosphtes as will feeding - not overfeeding fish

 

[Sdot]

I have had similar issues with keeping phosphate. Continue to dose and probably send out an ICP test to validate your home test kit. Dose until you get reading. I recently switched to a milwaukee test because my hanna was reporting high level of phos, which turned out to be zero.

 

[Char.toombes]

While .03-.04 is my desired range, zero will invite dinos, while high levels invite cyano.
Feeding corals foods such as reef roids will increase phosphtes as will feeding - not overfeeding fish

I was starting to dose AB+ but was told it could only further feed Dino’s assuming I might have them already so I stopped. Wouldn’t reef roids feed Dino’s as well?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Will be picking up a Hanna tester and go from there. I’m just not sure what could be causing the stress and death on my Lps/SPS frags if not this. All my other parameters have been pretty stable for a while now.

Just remember that the measurement uncertainty with the Hanna is +-0.04 ppm. So a reading of 0.03 could be zero.

Aim for a reading of around 0.06-7 for a safe range.

 

[Reef.]

Just remember that the measurement uncertainty with the Hanna is +-0.04 ppm. So a reading of 0.03 could be zero.

Aim for a reading of around 0.06-7 for a safe range.

Depends which Hanna, some are 0.02+/- like the 774 model.

 

[Char.toombes]

Just remember that the measurement uncertainty with the Hanna is +-0.04 ppm. So a reading of 0.03 could be zero.

Aim for a reading of around 0.06-7 for a safe range.

I just read this morning of that when looking at the tester. I’m definitely going to shoot for higher. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Reef.]

Will be picking up a Hanna tester and go from there. I’m just not sure what could be causing the stress and death on my Lps/SPS frags if not this. All my other parameters have been pretty stable for a while now.

Taken a look at your build thread, hard to tell from pictures but have you considered the lighting could be the issue? Looks a little dark to me.
Also check for any rusty equipment, that will kill corals fast.

 

[Char.toombes]

Depends which Hanna, some are 0.02+/- like the 774 model.

I actually just picked up the HI736 from my LFS. I’m aware of the conversion too but I don’t see my tank ever being over 0.5ppm so hopefully this helps get this thing dialed in

 

[Char.toombes]

Taken a look at your build thread, hard to tell from pictures but have you considered the lighting could be the issue? Looks a little dark to me.
Also check for any rusty equipment, that will kill corals fast.

I did rent a PAR meter in the last month from my LFS and realized I had much lower lighting than I assumed so I have since turned it up and everything is now sitting in a recommended par level.

 

[anthonygf]

I’m sorry I should specify I’m thawing half a cube of frozen mysis and feeding from that for up 3-4 days, and I’ll substitute pellets when I don’t feel like thawing the mysis.
And okay I’ll give the no skimmer a try, and I’m not doing any WC as of now for the foreseeable future. Definitely not risking any new frags until as well, losing my dragon soul favia and now this one is heartbreaking to watch.

Keep using the skimmer, just let the effluent flow into a filter box or media. I have been doing this for years to keep my nutrients up. The large detritus particles will get caught by the filter and the liquid with the good nutrients will go back into the water column. This way you can keep the oxygenation going.