High phosphates

CholyaSaltTank · 06/21/2016, 06:16 PM

Hey everybody. As you know I'm very new to this. Doing my first ever tank, and it is saltwater. I have been doing live rock cycling with 2 inches of sand and 23 pounds of live rock in a 29 gallon long tank. I was doing home water tests every three days to check the ph, salinity, ammonia nitrite and nitrate levels. After about 3 weeks the ammonia had already gone up and back down to zero and my nitrite was zero and nitrate about 10. And I made sure it was stable for a few days before getting it professionally tested at the lfs.

The owner ran all the tests and everything was fine except apparently my phosphates were through the roof. Like, worse then the local city tap water bad, which is odd seeing as how I use RO water. Between the owner and myself we have it narrowed down to either, leaching rock, a bad container for transporting the water sample, a broken ro unit( which doesn't make sense because even if broken, it wouldn't be worse then tap water). There is literally nothing but rock and sand in the tank. There is not even any algae growth and never have had any algae growth.

Being a noob and all, my wife and I found this old aquarium in our garage cleaning it out and it was nasty. So we cleaned it real good with purple power cleaning spray before setting up the tank. We did rinse off all the cleaner and dirt and stuff, but in curious if maybe residue from the cleaner could be the high phosphates?

This Friday I'm going to take a sample of ro water, a sample of tap water, a sample of saltwater, and a sample from my tank to LfS and she is going to check each sample to maybe see where exactly it's coming from.

I guess my question to you all is, have you seen something like this before, if so what should be done, do you know what my problem is? Is my tank just not done cycling? Please help!

Thank you!

fishchef · 06/21/2016, 06:26 PM

What were your phosphate numbers? I would have never used soap, which is high in phosphates and God knows what else. Maybe someone will post and tell you how to correct. Probably a complete breakdown. Good luck.

CholyaSaltTank · 06/21/2016, 06:39 PM

I wish I had asked what the exact numbers were... So you think it could be he cleaner that causes the high phosphates? Unfortunately we cleaned the tank before we knew anything whatsoever..... Hindsight is 20/20.

bertoni · 06/21/2016, 06:43 PM

I doubt that the residue from the cleaner is making a difference in the phosphate level. If the phosphate kit is accurate, I'd try a bit of GFO and work from there. Bulk Reef Supply products seem to be fairly popular, and PhosBan seemed to work for me. A reactor might be useful since GFO requires flow through the media. If the problem persists, the live rock might be leaching phosphate, which can require other approaches to keep the cost down.

CholyaSaltTank · 06/21/2016, 06:47 PM

Okay thank you!

fishchef · 06/21/2016, 08:11 PM

I would be concerned about chemicals from the soap. Did you rinse with vinegar as a final step? You could put a Poly Bio-Marine Polyfilter in the system to pull out any unwanted residue. If the PO4 was very low like 1.0 ppm it could be leaching from the rock as said. Some consider 1.0 not very low, but I did want to start some where. If it was crazy high then there's other issues.

SeaAgg09 · 06/23/2016, 07:59 AM

If there were any serious chems from the soap, the bacterial populations would not have cycled as quickly as they did. Generally chemicals in cleaners are anti-bacterial first, with side effects of affecting things like coral and fish.

Where did the sand come from?

Generally if rock is "leaching" phosphates, algae will grow on the rocks (close to nutrient source), but the main water volume doesn't show the phosphate.

A few things before you start adding fish and corals.

1. Vacuum the gravel. You aren't going to harm any beneficial bacteria. If there is a bunch of detritus in the gravel, that can be breaking down and causing phosphates.

2. Do a small water change (5 gallons or so). Take each rock out of the tank, put it in the OLD saltwater, and shake the hell out of it. If there is detritus in the live rock, shaking it will help dislodge it. Even better, if you have a pump (bigger the better), blast the rock to get anything dislodged. This is harder / impossible to do with coral on the rocks.

ezerasurfr · 06/23/2016, 09:28 AM

Purple Power is phosphate free. From my understanding though, it is ether-based. I would assume it is coming from either the rocks, or the sand. Where did you get each? Were they dried, or live?

How large is the tank?
Do you have a sump?
What is your mechanical filtration (skimmer, socks, ect?)

CholyaSaltTank · 06/23/2016, 09:43 AM

The tank is 29 gallons. No sump, just a penguin bio wheel 200. I got the a few live rocks and a bunch of dry rocks from a local dealer. The sand I got from petsmart. So you think it's from detritus? What shouldn't use to vacuum just detritus and not a whole bunch of sand wih it?

Thank you

rvlcf · 06/23/2016, 09:43 AM

What type of rock is it? Is it dry Pukani? Mine leached a boatload of phosphate for the first month i was curing it. Added Lanthanum chloride to my curing bucket and did water changes every week. It pulled and bound up the phosphate which I exported with water changes. My tank is up and running now with phosphorous running at 3 last check, which is
.009 phosphate. Also running gfo in a reactor. Keep lights low or off and find a way to get the levels down before adding livestock. You don't have algae......yet.

bertoni · 06/23/2016, 01:42 PM

I agree that lanthanum chloride is an inexpensive way to remove a lot of phosphate. Personally, I think either that or GFO both would be fine to try. Lanthanum chloride is cheaper if the problem is extensive, but it forms a powdery precipitate that is a bit of work to remove.

CholyaSaltTank · 06/25/2016, 05:19 AM

Just giving an update to everyone . I got a sample of my ro water tested my tap water tested and my aquarium water tested. And it turns out my Ro filter is not filtering properly because there's phosphates even with ro water. And then I remembered when I hooked the ro unit the very first time, our hot and cold was backwards, so that water was blasting through my system without me even knowing then the tubing got melted from the hot water and water exploded everywhere . at the time I didn't realize that hot water was bad for the membrane and so I just snip the tubing back a little and reconnected it to the proper Coldwater . And now I realize that Wayback then in the very beginning I ruined my membrane with the hot water and this is why my phosphates are so high... Does anyone have a free Aquaitic life ro buddy membrane they like to give to me? Lol

bertoni · 06/25/2016, 02:53 PM

Oops, I'm sorry to hear about your problems. Hopefully, a new membrane will help the situation.

06/21/2016, 06:16 PM	#1
CholyaSaltTank Registered Member Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 29	High phosphates Hey everybody. As you know I'm very new to this. Doing my first ever tank, and it is saltwater. I have been doing live rock cycling with 2 inches of sand and 23 pounds of live rock in a 29 gallon long tank. I was doing home water tests every three days to check the ph, salinity, ammonia nitrite and nitrate levels. After about 3 weeks the ammonia had already gone up and back down to zero and my nitrite was zero and nitrate about 10. And I made sure it was stable for a few days before getting it professionally tested at the lfs. The owner ran all the tests and everything was fine except apparently my phosphates were through the roof. Like, worse then the local city tap water bad, which is odd seeing as how I use RO water. Between the owner and myself we have it narrowed down to either, leaching rock, a bad container for transporting the water sample, a broken ro unit( which doesn't make sense because even if broken, it wouldn't be worse then tap water). There is literally nothing but rock and sand in the tank. There is not even any algae growth and never have had any algae growth. Being a noob and all, my wife and I found this old aquarium in our garage cleaning it out and it was nasty. So we cleaned it real good with purple power cleaning spray before setting up the tank. We did rinse off all the cleaner and dirt and stuff, but in curious if maybe residue from the cleaner could be the high phosphates? This Friday I'm going to take a sample of ro water, a sample of tap water, a sample of saltwater, and a sample from my tank to LfS and she is going to check each sample to maybe see where exactly it's coming from. I guess my question to you all is, have you seen something like this before, if so what should be done, do you know what my problem is? Is my tank just not done cycling? Please help! Thank you!

06/21/2016, 06:43 PM	#4
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	I doubt that the residue from the cleaner is making a difference in the phosphate level. If the phosphate kit is accurate, I'd try a bit of GFO and work from there. Bulk Reef Supply products seem to be fairly popular, and PhosBan seemed to work for me. A reactor might be useful since GFO requires flow through the media. If the problem persists, the live rock might be leaching phosphate, which can require other approaches to keep the cost down. __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

06/23/2016, 09:43 AM	#10
rvlcf Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Fairfield, Ct. Posts: 136	What type of rock is it? Is it dry Pukani? Mine leached a boatload of phosphate for the first month i was curing it. Added Lanthanum chloride to my curing bucket and did water changes every week. It pulled and bound up the phosphate which I exported with water changes. My tank is up and running now with phosphorous running at 3 last check, which is .009 phosphate. Also running gfo in a reactor. Keep lights low or off and find a way to get the levels down before adding livestock. You don't have algae......yet. __________________ Reefer 450

06/23/2016, 01:42 PM	#11
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	I agree that lanthanum chloride is an inexpensive way to remove a lot of phosphate. Personally, I think either that or GFO both would be fine to try. Lanthanum chloride is cheaper if the problem is extensive, but it forms a powdery precipitate that is a bit of work to remove. __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

06/25/2016, 02:53 PM	#13
bertoni RC Mod Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Mountain View, CA, USA Posts: 88,616	Oops, I'm sorry to hear about your problems. Hopefully, a new membrane will help the situation. __________________ Jonathan Bertoni

06/21/2016, 06:26 PM	#2
fishchef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: St. Louis, MO Posts: 1,222	What were your phosphate numbers? I would have never used soap, which is high in phosphates and God knows what else. Maybe someone will post and tell you how to correct. Probably a complete breakdown. Good luck.

06/21/2016, 06:39 PM	#3
CholyaSaltTank Registered Member Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 29	I wish I had asked what the exact numbers were... So you think it could be he cleaner that causes the high phosphates? Unfortunately we cleaned the tank before we knew anything whatsoever..... Hindsight is 20/20.

06/21/2016, 06:47 PM	#5
CholyaSaltTank Registered Member Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 29	Okay thank you!

06/21/2016, 08:11 PM	#6
fishchef Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: St. Louis, MO Posts: 1,222	I would be concerned about chemicals from the soap. Did you rinse with vinegar as a final step? You could put a Poly Bio-Marine Polyfilter in the system to pull out any unwanted residue. If the PO4 was very low like 1.0 ppm it could be leaching from the rock as said. Some consider 1.0 not very low, but I did want to start some where. If it was crazy high then there's other issues.

06/23/2016, 07:59 AM	#7
SeaAgg09 Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 22	If there were any serious chems from the soap, the bacterial populations would not have cycled as quickly as they did. Generally chemicals in cleaners are anti-bacterial first, with side effects of affecting things like coral and fish. Where did the sand come from? Generally if rock is "leaching" phosphates, algae will grow on the rocks (close to nutrient source), but the main water volume doesn't show the phosphate. A few things before you start adding fish and corals. 1. Vacuum the gravel. You aren't going to harm any beneficial bacteria. If there is a bunch of detritus in the gravel, that can be breaking down and causing phosphates. 2. Do a small water change (5 gallons or so). Take each rock out of the tank, put it in the OLD saltwater, and shake the hell out of it. If there is detritus in the live rock, shaking it will help dislodge it. Even better, if you have a pump (bigger the better), blast the rock to get anything dislodged. This is harder / impossible to do with coral on the rocks.

06/23/2016, 09:28 AM	#8
ezerasurfr Moved On Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: New Jersey Posts: 663	Purple Power is phosphate free. From my understanding though, it is ether-based. I would assume it is coming from either the rocks, or the sand. Where did you get each? Were they dried, or live? How large is the tank? Do you have a sump? What is your mechanical filtration (skimmer, socks, ect?)

06/25/2016, 05:19 AM	#12
CholyaSaltTank Registered Member Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 29	Just giving an update to everyone . I got a sample of my ro water tested my tap water tested and my aquarium water tested. And it turns out my Ro filter is not filtering properly because there's phosphates even with ro water. And then I remembered when I hooked the ro unit the very first time, our hot and cold was backwards, so that water was blasting through my system without me even knowing then the tubing got melted from the hot water and water exploded everywhere . at the time I didn't realize that hot water was bad for the membrane and so I just snip the tubing back a little and reconnected it to the proper Coldwater . And now I realize that Wayback then in the very beginning I ruined my membrane with the hot water and this is why my phosphates are so high... Does anyone have a free Aquaitic life ro buddy membrane they like to give to me? Lol