Phosphates in my change water!!!!

marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Well.. I'm in the middle of fighting some cyano.
It's an improved situation since I first started but I did a phosphate test of tank water a couple days ago and it measured 0.11 ppm. I changed my GFO and tonight was 0.00. Great.. well ... out of curiosity I decided to go check my brand new vat of change water to test for phosphate.
I figured it would be 0.00 as well, however it tested 0.02. I'm wondering if this is something I should be concerned about at this point.
Do I need to run a bag of GFO on my change water. I haven't tested my top off water to see if it is also contains phosphate. I'm assuming it will. My RO/DI is only about 6 or 7 months old, but maybe its time to change it out. I'd hate to continue to feed phosphate to the tank when I top off or change water.
Any advice?
 
snakeblitz33

snakeblitz33

Well-Known Member
Phosphate in the top off water of 0.02 is not much at all... but adding it to the tank every day over time can be detrimental. Having a phosphate reading of 0.02-0.04 is ideal for most SPS in reef tanks with the sweet spot at 0.03.
Check your TDS reading on your RO/DI Unit. If it's more than 2, then you should change your filters. Most though would say that a TDS reading of more than 0 should warrant a filter change.
TDS meters are like $30. I check my TDS once a month on my water reservoir to make sure it's good. Once it starts rising, I change the filters.
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
+1 IMHO phosphate (as well as the nitrates) overwhelming come from the livsstock with any reasonably normal replacement water. but that's just my .02
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by SnakeBlitz33 http:///t/395683/phosphates-in-my-change-water#post_3523297
Phosphate in the top off water of 0.02 is not much at all... but adding it to the tank every day over time can be detrimental. Having a phosphate reading of 0.02-0.04 is ideal for most SPS in reef tanks with the sweet spot at 0.03.
Check your TDS reading on your RO/DI Unit. If it's more than 2, then you should change your filters. Most though would say that a TDS reading of more than 0 should warrant a filter change.
TDS meters are like $30. I check my TDS once a month on my water reservoir to make sure it's good. Once it starts rising, I change the filters.
Thanks Snake..
I have an inline TDS to measure the TDS before and ofter the DI resin stage. Before the stage I'm seeing 9 and after the final DI stage I still read 0. I'm using BRS color changing resin. It goes from Blue/black to brown when exhausted. Only about 1/8th of the resin is exhausted at this point. I think I still have some time left before a filter change.
I think I'll just have to start doing weekly phos checks to see how fast my GFO is exhausting. This last batch lasted me about 3 weeks it seems, but I was only using 1/2 the recommended amount.
I won't worry about the 0.02 reading at this point. i store my water in Brute containers, so maybe there is some leakage?
I think the next step is measuring the efluent directly from the DI stage to see if there is any phos being read. I've also read that the hanna meters can be oversensitive and even a true 0 result will show up as 0.02 to 0.04 due to the range of accuracy.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by beaslbob http:///t/395683/phosphates-in-my-change-water#post_3523337
+! IMHO phosphate (as well as the nitrates) overwhelming come from the livsstock with any reasonably normal replacement water. but that's just my .02
I've only been doing small 5 gallon water changes every couple days to once a week.. at least lately. I stopped doing daily 1 gallon changes. I think it may be better to do 2 15 gallon changes a month verses 30 1 gallon changes. May be it would even be better to just do a single 30 to 40 gallon change monthly? I don't know. I guess it depends on my testing. I may have to experiment. Maybe I should increase the amount and frequency until the Cyano is completely cleared up?
 
mr llimpid

mr llimpid

Member
All prefilters need to be changed every 6 months, DI unit may go longer if your resin is still good. Do you back flush your RO unit every month? This will help keep your membrane working properly.
 
mr llimpid

mr llimpid

Member
I would test your RO water for phosphate, then test after you add salt mix. I once got a bad batch of salt that was very low in calcium.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr LLimpid http:///t/395683/phosphates-in-my-change-water#post_3523636
I would test your RO water for phosphate, then test after you add salt mix. I once got a bad batch of salt that was very low in calcium.
I'll do that tonight.
I just mixed a fresh batch of salt water a couple nights ago.. calcium was testing a bit low. I use Rea Sea Coral Pro Salt.
Last test came out to
ALK 12.4
MAG 1440
CALC 400
 
beaslbob

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarvelFan http:///t/395683/phosphates-in-my-change-water#post_3523517
I've only been doing small 5 gallon water changes every couple days to once a week.. at least lately. I stopped doing daily 1 gallon changes. I think it may be better to do 2 15 gallon changes a month verses 30 1 gallon changes. May be it would even be better to just do a single 30 to 40 gallon change monthly? I don't know. I guess it depends on my testing. I may have to experiment. Maybe I should increase the amount and frequency until the Cyano is completely cleared up?
Little late in replying but consider water changes that are "tied" to frequency. Say 1/100 change every day, of 10/100 every 10 days, 20/100 every 20, etc etc etc etc.
Under any of those water changes schedules the amount of nitrates (or anything else) will be 100 times the daily change just before water changes. Plus whatever is in the replacement water.
What will change is the amount of nitrates after the water change and be much lower with the larger water changes.
So you are kind of correct and more frequent smaller changes will result is less variation before and after water changes. In the limiting case of a continuous water change equal to 1/100 per day, the tank will have a constant 100ppm nitrates plus whatever is in the replacement water.
None of which will help much with the cyano.
First the best thing to do is add macro algae or even an algae turf scrubber to consume the nitrates and phosphates so they are constantly unmeasureable regardless of any water changes.
Secondly, simply kill the lights and suspend feeding until the cyano dies off. The resume with less lighting and feeding and adjust so the nice to have stuff thrives but the cyano stays away.
my .02
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
After the 3-1/2 days of blackout the Cyano seems to have receded, but there are still some small rusty spots. The issue still seems to be my phosphates. Even after running GFO the last couple weeks and cutting back on feeding and light and doing some water changes there are some patches of Green hair algae on some rocks and I also see 2 aipstasia sprouted. Getting a little frustrated. I need to find the source. I'm triple washing my frozen food before feeding. Running skimmer 24/7. I just reworked my algae scrubber. I hope it starts to grow some nice algae, the scrubber may help finally clean up the tank, but I need to find my source.
While I'm measuring 0 TDS on my RO/DI water I did a Hanna check of the water directly from my RO/DI before it goes into storage. I got a reading of 0.14. I ordered new filters today. The tank water measured 0.06 yesterday. I'm guessing my GFO is already exhausted. I ordered some High Capacity GFO today as well. Hopefully it will last longer. Nitrates tested at 0.
The stage before the DI stage is showing about 6 TDS.
pH of my tank is staying around 7.8.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Swapping out my filters tonight and making a fresh batch of RO/DI water after I test the new effluent. I figure its only $30 to replace the RO and DI stages. I'll flush my membrane (which should be good for up to 3 years according to BRS), and then run the test.
Last night I picked out as much hair algae as possible. there are only 2 small patches of it.. its not all over the tank. My scrubber "seems" ( at least at this point) to be darkening, there are a couple small patches of green hair algae forming. I'll post a video of the new bubble set up. I ended up removing the black cover and just hanging the screen so it can sway with the air bubbles. The swaying seems to make it so that the bubbles make better contacts and forces the bubbles to roll across teh screen more evenly. I hope it work out!
I also add the Powerhead in the sump chamber that has the scrubber, I'm wondering if the increased flow will help as well. I read on the Algae scrubber forums that some people had success by using powerheads to move water over the screen instead of using air stones.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
I changed out the filters on the RO/DI. I even swtiched out the DI Resin. TDS after RO stage was betwen 9-14 before the change.. now its 4. Still 0 TDS after the DI stage. Hopefully it makes a difference.
Here is an updated video of the scrubber and some bonus footage of my aquarium. I'm having a hard time captureing the bubbles on film. Very hard to see, but the bubble coverage is improved since the last video.
http://youtu.be/-gcguOgGN3k
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by tthemadd1 http:///t/395683/phosphates-in-my-change-water#post_3524596
Nice tank. Dig the rock work.
Thanks. I really like it myself. Only one spot I can't quite clean between is the a rock and the front of the glass in the right corner. have to take a piece of thin acrylic sheet and wedge it between.. real pain, but I don't feel like shifting any of my rock around at this point.
Did not get a chance to test the water yet. Going to when I get home tonight. I fell behind on testing the last 2 weeks. I did stop dosing 2 part for just a little while. I'm trying to figure out what is making my controller go haywire.
I had a scare on Sunday morning. My controller started to see my heater channel as a light function and my light as a controller function. My heater was stuck on for several hour of the early morning. i got some alerts from my Seneye device that my temperature was too high.. luckily it maxed out only at 80.5... my controller is set to stay at 79. But if my heater would have been set higher that could have been bad. Since I did the reset of my controller I haven't set up my dosing pumps.
Also, I noticed that now my GFO/Carbon reactor is completely caked with white precipitation. Its been 2 days since any dosing. I'll see where my level are tonight and adjust from there.
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
I did a test of the effluent from the new filters and my Hanna checker is all over the place. I got a reading of 0.08 and 0.05 when I checked it (I ran it twice). I also checked my tank water. I ran the test 3 times (I use one vial with the base water sample and the other I mix the reagent). Maybe I'm suppose to use the same water sample vial, but I figured the results should be the same either way.
My first test came out to 0.00
My second test (same samples) 0.34
My last test (same samples) came out to 0.02.
On top of that, at first I could not get the checker to calibrate. I kept getting "L.Lo" display during calibration. The manual says this means their is not enough light. I checked the light at it was bright as can be. After about 45 min of tinkering I think I figured out why though. When you take the battery out the screw on the bottom needs to be loosened. When you do this the entire guts (white plastic part) of the unit can slide up and down in the sleeve of the green body.. The light inside may shine, but if you don't have the body fully positioned down, the optic opposite the light may not be fully exposed. Once I pushed down on the white part (after changing out 3 batteries) The calibration started to work again.
Now it is just a waiting game. Tank is looking good, but there is rusy spots forming again. I'm hoping I can slowly defeat this with good husbandry.
Last nights testing:




Day



Time



Daily Calc (ml)



Daily Alk (ml)



Calc



Alk



Mag



Salinity



pH



Phos



H2O Change (gal)



Note







6/26/2013



6:30 PM



0



0



440



10



1400



1.025







0.02



0







 
ibew41

ibew41

Active Member
are you drying the sample tubes? if any lint or dirt or spots are on the tube will cause a bad reading
 
marvelfan

marvelfan

Member
Yeah.. I air dry them and then I do a rinse with the source water before I test. I'm going to do another round of tests in a day or so and see how they turn out.
 
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