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Phosphates Off The Scale (1 Viewer)

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I'm at a complete loss here.

The phosphates are off the scale on my Hanna ULR flashing .90 every time and I have absolutely no idea why. All fish and inverts accounted for. Vacuumed the sand bed to the point where virtually no silt is sucked up. Cleaned the sump of all detrius (wasn't much to start with) and removed 1/2 the macro down there as well. Filter sock swapped out daily and running aggressive skimming. I have changed the batteries in my tester as well as got new reagent for it and same result. I then tried a Nyos kit and got similar results, off the chart in both it and the Hanna with deep blue colors. Tested my source water and the PO4 is virtually undetectable with clear for Nyos and a .01 on 1 of 4 tests with the Hanna. I'm using Red Sea Pro salt and do get a consistent .01 on the Hanna after mixing. The only time I have been able to get it below a flashing .9 is when I treated the tank with Phosphate Rx twice a day for a week straight. Only then did the Phosphates come down to a .25 on the Hanna where I stopped dosing. Within three days they shot back up to over .90. That's when I started aggressive water changes doing 50% changes every other day for a week now and so far no impact to the numbers at all. I also have gone to targeted feeding to minimize uneaten food in the tank. I have also lost about 1/3 of the corals in the tank over the duration of this what appears to be a long duration crash event. I have had multiple LPS corals are bail out, or peel back away from their skeletons, while others are completely un-phased with no change in color or polyp extension. I have also lost some SPS colonies yet others show no losses. I have also lost most of my zoas to the aptasia outbreak. Tried dipping some of the zoas frags I could remove and no hint of any types of parasites that could cause this this sort of loss. How ever I can also go 2-3 days in between glass cleanings.

Food is a mix of frozen rinsed mysis shrimp, frozen rinsed blood worms, and marine cuisine once a day.

I have also torn down my mixing station and scrubbed it and the pump clean of any organic build up that happens from using the Red Sea Pro salt.

I am not dosing with any forms of bacteria, NoPox, or any other carbon dosing methods.

As for the rest of the numbers they are as follows:

Water temp 77.3-5 stable
Salinity 1.026
Alk: 9.5
PH: 8.4
Cal: 410
Mg: 1400
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates 1
Phosphates .90+ PPM Flashing (Hanna ULR)
1.0+ with the Nyos kit


I'm nearly at my whit's end with all this and it's tearing me up watching my my reef slowly whither and die.

Any help would be very deeply appreciated.

What it looked like before..

20201006_093520~2.jpg

And now :cry:

20211018_185745.jpg

It looks much worse in person...
 

Tangs

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Tear it apart cus you might of missed something. Go from one end to snother...Looks like you have a lot of money invested in your aquarium. Continue doing partial water changes as a suggestion.
 

soymilk

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thats alot of leeching if its rocks. my theory is something is dead. Have you checked your overflow box to see if something died in there?
 
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There have not been any ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate spikes at all. Both ammonia and nitrite have remained at undetectable levels for the past 4 years since the initial cycling. The nitrates have stayed been between 1 and 3 (Nyos test) for the past year. The phosphates also have been relatively low and stable for well over two years remaining at .08 - .1 until about two months ago when they inexplicably shot up.

As for the sand bed it's not entirely large crushed coral, there's only about 15 pounds of it in there. Underneath is about 40 pounds of Carib Sea Fiji Pink which I vacuumed regularly every 3 months since the tank was first ready for fish. It's possible that the PO4 source is the sand bed, but I just can't see how it would spike so high so suddenly like that with none of the other parameters getting out of line along with it. I have thought about switching the larger crush base for something much smaller but just not sure the nest way to go about doing it and not cause a mini cycle in the process. Plus with many of the corals already stressed as they are, I'm a little apprehensive on making any massive changes like going bare bottom or replacing the bed.
 
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If you don't want to do anything too aggressive, just perform some water changes about every 3 days and keep dosing the Phosphate RX and eventually it will come down. Might be a long battle if the rocks or sand are indeed leeching. I had one system leech for over 6 months even while dosing Lanthanum Chloride the entire time. Finally all the bound PO4 just eventually came out and the numbers leveled out. Talk about a relief. For months I felt like I was loosing the battle. Farley kept telling me to stick with it and had it not been for him I probably would have gave up.
 
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BTW…if you’re wondering how far you can push the Phosphate RX…look at the pic below. That was way too far. ;) I think dropping by .05 (in 24 hrs) would be my limit. Maybe by 0.1 with no SPS. You might be able to push it to 0.2 if no SPS, but after that is the danger zone.

E33C4861-E2CA-45D7-997F-45EBD9B8BBE3.jpeg
 

soymilk

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i don't think the hanna test kit works on freshwater. If the current theory is the crushed coral leeching out phosphate, then you should be able to recreate that in a test.

grab some crushed coral out, put in a fresh container of new saltwater. test before and test after a few days.
 

Stickboy97

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Phophate RX is good stuff, but dose less than the box says. It took mine down super fast last time I had a spike. In a previous tank my phosphate shot up for no reason and when I dropped it too fast I lost a couple of my monti's. Just go slow.
 
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Phophate RX is good stuff, but dose less than the box says. It took mine down super fast last time I had a spike. In a previous tank my phosphate shot up for no reason and when I dropped it too fast I lost a couple of my monti's. Just go slow.
It’s just watered down Lanthanum Chloride. Probably like 2% mixed with RO water.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I have toyed with doing a 90% water change on the display and see if the PO4 levels spike back up after a few days but just unsure how much of a shock it'd be to the system. At least for now I'll resume dosing with Phosphate RX and water changes. I'll also pull out some of the crushed base out and put it in a gallon of fresh mixed water and circulate it for a few days to see if it spikes the PO4 in that sample. Hopefully I won't have to pull out the sand bed.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I have toyed with doing a 90% water change on the display and see if the PO4 levels spike back up after a few days but just unsure how much of a shock it'd be to the system. At least for now I'll resume dosing with Phosphate RX and water changes. I'll also pull out some of the crushed base out and put it in a gallon of fresh mixed water and circulate it for a few days to see if it spikes the PO4 in that sample. Hopefully I won't have to pull out the sand bed.
Keep us updated. Interested to know what it is. I think the corals in your tank would do fine with a 90/G water change. I’d personally break it up into 50% on one day and then 40% the next or wait a few days. If you hold the feedings and the PO4 shoots back up to 0.9…it’s leeching or something is dead in the tank under the rocks.
 
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Ran the test with about 1/2 cup of substrate in a gallon of freshly mixed salt water. Either it's not the substrate leeching or didn't allow for enough time. I put the substrate sample in a 1 gal container and topped it off with fresh salt water, added a small pump for circulation and set it in the sump to keep the tamps the same as the tank and ran it for about 36 hours..

Starting numbers
Alk 10
PH 8.4
Cal 450
MG 1380
PO4 .01

Ending numbers
Alk 9.9
PH 8.2
Cal 450
MG 1380
PO4 .01

A 25 gallon water change on the tank was completed Wed and dosed Phosphate RX once daily at lights out. Checked PO4 daily just before dosing with Phosphate RX and last night it finally stopped blinking .90 last night showing .88. It has taken nearly 300 gallons of fresh salt water and 2/3 of a bottle of Phosphate RX to get it to this point and no idea if it will stay there once I discontinue dosing with RX.
 

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i firmly believe its not leeching outta the crushed coral. I'm going back to the idea something bit the dust.
 
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Hard to tell. Could be bound in the rock? Any loses that you know of? How big is your fish load?

One thing I would do before you end up with Cyano is get the nitrates up more. Minimum 3 but better around 5. With all these water changes your probably at zero now if you’re not dosing back to the system.

I’d keep doing 50% water changes every 2-3 days to get the numbers down (but keep adding and maintain NO3). If PO4 is bound in the rock, it will keep releasing until it’s finally done.

Let’s back up for a minute or two. When was the tank started and what rock did you use? Also, precisely how much food goes into the tank daily?

One thing that we could try if this doesn’t work is bacteria dosing. It will go deep into rock. Their ability to consume nutrients much faster and in much greater quantities than algae is very beneficial for times such as this, but again…we need to balance the nutrients while doing so. We don’t want to over do it.
 
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