High Phosphate

C

Cameron

As many know, I have had a problem with high phosphates due to improper rinsing of food and some over feeding of my tank... The levels were as high as 1.33 ppm as tested with a Hanna checker. I just checked and now they are .05 ppm.

I wanted to share some of what I have learned in just the past week...

If you are going to dose lanthium chloride, do it in small doses directly into your skimmer chamber.. The interaction between the LC and you water is generally limited to the chamber and seems to be more effective. I was worried about my yellow tang but, dosing in that manner had no reprocussions on said tang.

Rinse your food. Twice. So much phosphate enters the tank from food.

Prodibio Bio clean and Bioptim work well for adding new strains of bacteria which aid in the process of phosphate removal.

If you fear that your rocks have been in a high phosphate environment and are going to continue to leech out phosphates- stop dosing LC for a week and feed as normal (rinsing the food and not over feeding) and check your phosphate levels. If they rise by 30% or more; you will need to stick with a dosing schedule. I have been told that it could take up to six months for the phosphate to deplete from the system.

I welcome any input on this matter as I know there are those of you who have been through this situation too..

Be well,
Cameron


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I just read this March 2012 article by Holmes-Farley this morning:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry

Within the article he explains that phosphorous is part of all protein rich foods, and rinsing it is only going to remove the same percentage of phosphates from it as the percentage of food that is rinsed away, because all you are doing by rinsing is removing loose particles of the food. The phosphorous is part of the molecular structure of the food itself, and not something that can be rinsed away, for the most part. He makes a reference to those Hanna checkers as well.

When I started running an algae scrubber, a little hair algae started growing some places on the rock. It had never done that before. I understand now, I think, that the phosphates within the rock were probably being leached out of the rock by the scrubber, and so, for a short time, there was a little algae growth at places where the phosphates were exiting the rock. The algae growth was short lived. And, since I drip lime water, which precipitates phosphates, I think that along with using the scrubber, I have a good basis for thinking that phosphates will never have a chance in this system! As for all of the different dosing schemes pointed at reducing phosphates, I know nothing!


David
 
Glad to hear you went with the LC treatment and that it worked for you. Did you end up using the aquarium specific stuff or just PhosFree or SeaClear from a pool store?
 
I'm using Brightwell Aquatics Phosphat-e

It's a pretty good product..

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