Phospates

[reefeel]

For months now I have been battling phosphates from an uknown source. My water has no phosphates going in but ends up with 4mg/L after a bit. My sand ends up turning a dark brown algae that spreads across my sand bed. I only feed my fish every 2 days and I have even tried phosban but nothing helps. I have a protein skimmer and a 10X an hour flitration system, In an 85 gallon. I change 8 gallons a week. My sand is Black Pacific Arag-Alive and I have 90lbs of live rock. Where are my phosphates coming from?
Fish in tank-
13 in snowflake eel
2 in longnose hawk
3 1.5in green chromis
1.5 in yellow tail damsel
3 in Bannerfish Butterfly
2 in 4-line wrasse3
2 2in percs
and a 3 inch sand gobie-forget its name.

 

[edwar050]

not sure, good ? although you do have alot of fish, I wouldn't say your tank is overstocked but there waste may have something to do with it. Do you have a cleanup crew, what kind of sand bed, any areas of extremely low water flow?

 

[reefeel]

I have a clean up crew-got a bigger one yesterday. My flow is good I have 4 centipeade returns each pumping out a little more then 200gph. I also have a Savio pushing out around 800gph. Sand bed is 3.75in deep.

 

[edwar050]

sorry not sure?

 

[reefnut]

What is your water source?? Tap water?? Keep in mind that phosphate kits only detect inorganic phosphates. You could be adding organic phosphates with top offs and water changes... which could convert to inorganic phosphates after being added to the tank.
Also, what are you feeding?? how much and how often??

 

[reefeel]

My water source is spring water but it gets sent through my Kold-Ster-Il. I top it off with water from the deionizer or our house reverse osmosis. I feed my fish various frozen food and some flake. My eel gets a finger-tip of shrimp evey 2-3 days whenever he comes out looking for food. Most of my food is Ocean Nutrition.

 

[firedad720]

i had a big phosphate problem, to the point that my corals stoped growing. i bought some marc weiss phosphate magnet, and in a month and a half my phosphate is 0. just checked two days ago. i used a double amount then what it called for in my size tank. worked fast.
rick

 

[reefeel]

Anyone else have any use with Marc Weiss phosphate magnet I don't want to go spend $30 for something that might not work.

 

[durabane]

I like kent phos sponge u can add it to a canister or stick it in polyp bags in you overflows. its about half the price of the marc wiess. I found that even with controled feeding and frequent RO water changes i still had phospates. Then I was told that household RO units did not take out Phospates and sure enough I tested and was almost at 4 after it had run through RO unit so I started buy DI water from walmart still have a little phos and dont want to do a 50 water change so I cut back on my light and started doing 20 a week still have a small problem but it is getting much better

 

[wax32]

Try stopping the frozen foods... stick to freeze-dried and pellets/flakes. The juice in frozen foods can contain lots of nastiness.

 

[reefeel]

Ok, I got the Kent Phosphate Sponge. I am going to limit my frozen foord to every 4 days or so and feed more flake food. Is it okay if I use algae strips?