Nitrates,phosphates, Im lost.

[Frankief]

Okay guys this is my first post, i have been lurking for awhile and i have learned a lot but this time id love it if you guys could chime in with your never ending reef knowledge and help a fellow reefer out.

Okay so i have an 125 gallon Mixed reef that has been running for about a year and three months, and i use the word mixed reef lightly considering i have one Red planet Sps and mainly Lps corals. Anyways my problem is that i cant seem to get my Phosphates in control and when i did a parameter test today i also noticed that my nitrates had elevated to around .10ppm and my phosphates are at .16ppm according to my Hannah testers.

I feed two cubes of PE Mysis which i rinse in RODI water.
I do a 10 Percent water change every sunday.
I am running two reactors one with carbon and the other with phosphate remover.
I also only have 6 fish, 5 of which are relatively small and one is a 12 inch engineer goby who loves to stir up my sand.
I also siphon the sand every sunday before the WC but only the top layer and its 2 1/2 inches thick.

So im not overstocked, i rinse my food and i watch them eat to ensure there are no leftovers and i also do water-changes every week. What could it be guys?? I don't know whats left to try.

Here are my tank parameters which are kept consistent and i also have a dosing pump set up with B ionic two part.
1. Salinity 1.026
2. pH 7.9-8.3
3. Alk 10
4. Ca 400
5. Mg 1250
6.Temp Always 80 Degrees, I have a chiller.
7. Ammonia 0
8.Nitrates .10
9.Phosphates .16
10. Nitrite 0

Sorry i listed everything i have just seen you guys always ask these things when trying to diagnose a problem but one more time just in-case you got lost in my rambling my question is what could be causing my phosphates and nitrates?

[Qballv1]

Look for dead spots behind rocks etc where food could be settling and rotting. Also, just before doing a WC blast off your rocks with a turkey baster or power head. You will be amazed at the amount of detritus on them.
What sort of filtration are you running? What skimmer are you running?
How often are you changing you phosphate media?
Look for settlement areas of detritus in your sump.

2 cubes of frozen food a day sounds like quite a bit for a few small fish aswell.
Do you only feed frozen food?

[Frankief]

Thnak you for the reply, ive never turkey basted my rocks i will attempt that, i have a Bubble magus Curve 7 in my sump and i keep it relatively clean but i have two filter socks in there. Im changing out carbon and Phosphate media every two weeks but i just tested my reactor water and my media has exhausted very quickly its only been a week since i changed it. And yes i feed frozen but i watch the fish as they eat and there is never any leftovers.

[Frankief]

Before i water change i always put my two MP40s and 100 percent power for a minute and let all the detritus stir up which is why i have never turkey basted my rocks.

[CHSUB]

no3 is .10 or 10?

[Frankief]

Originally Posted by CHSUB

no3 is .10 or 10?

.10ppm

[CHSUB]

.10 is very low, add more gfo if you want to lower po4; however hobby test kits have large error ranges on such low values. i see no problems with your parameters!!!

[Frankief]

Originally Posted by CHSUB

.10 is very low, add more gfo if you want to lower po4; however hobby test kits have large error ranges on such low values. i see no problems with your parameters!!!

Thank you CHSUB, is it safe to run more gfo than recommended according to tank size? I was also dealing with cyano about 3 weeks ago but i shut down my radions for 3 days and it went away and has stayed away luckily but i did notice that when the lights kicked back on for the first week the glass was beautiful with no cleaning but now its to the point where i clean the glass and the morning after there are brown splotches in some areas of the glass.

[CHSUB]

yes, a little more is ok and changed more often. however, i would not be concerned with your numbers. cyano is going to grow with a no3/po4 ratio of 1 to 1. how do your corals look? i might add some more fish, and a little algae on the glass is a good thing!!! i would keep doing what your doing.

[CStrickland]

Originally Posted by CHSUB

i see no problems with your parameters!!!

This. Your best test kit is your eyes, if everyone looks happy I'd quit chasing numbers. Obvi you want to keep testing so you can catch a problem early, like if your nitrates start to creep up, but don't fret over it. Even though the phos is a little high, lots of reefers would kill for your results It's good to need to clean the glass a couple times a week. One thing to look at might be the positions of your power heads, they need to keep everything flying around in the tank so that when the fish poop or food gets missed it is carried to your socks. Also, changing the socks a couple times a week to get that stuff out of the water column.

I do the turkey baster thing, and vacuum all my sand weekly with a water change. I think it helps keep me from needing to run reactors. But it's whatever is better for you, I don't see how it would hurt you to try it. I bet you'd be surprised what comes out. Seems like a lot of tanks that don't worry about stuff landing in the sand run ok for a year or 18 months and then the phos starts to creep up and you need to add more and more nutrient export. Or who knows, maybe that's just the timeline for people getting serious about testing so they finally buy a Hanna checker and see what's been there all along

I'm assuming you are starting with rodi water at 0 tds

[Frankief]

Okay thanks guys i appreciate all the input, and yes i use only RODI and i always have, i guess il stop chasing the ideal numbers because my corals look pretty good .

[Copperband bt]

What GFO u use and how often you change it
And yo feed to much 1 cube is good
Try to add crabs so they can eat all the left food which
No one can reach

And try Red Sea no3 and po4 remover is really good and strong
Use 10 ml for ur tank size ur no3 and po4 will be zero in no time
But thats not I perminent you have to find the real issu

One more thing what r u feeding ur coral ?? Cause that can be the problem ??

[Frankief]

Originally Posted by Copperband bt

What GFO u use and how often you change it
And yo feed to much 1 cube is good
Try to add crabs so they can eat all the left food which
No one can reach

And try Red Sea no3 and po4 remover is really good and strong
Use 10 ml for ur tank size ur no3 and po4 will be zero in no time
But thats not I perminent you have to find the real issu

One more thing what r u feeding ur coral ?? Cause that can be the problem ??

I use a GFO reccommended to me by the guys at world wide corals, i cant exactly remember the name but im heading over there in an hour to pick up some more and then i can tell you, i have 3 little hermit crabs but i had a hermit i thought was reed safe eat one of my beautiful prized trachys once and ever since then i cringe when i see them walking around the tank. Im going to cut down to one cube a day and see how that works out. Thanks for the input Copperband bt.

[Copperband bt]

Originally Posted by Frankief

I use a GFO reccommended to me by the guys at world wide corals, i cant exactly remember the name but im heading over there in an hour to pick up some more and then i can tell you, i have 3 little hermit crabs but i had a hermit i thought was reed safe eat one of my beautiful prized trachys once and ever since then i cringe when i see them walking around the tank. Im going to cut down to one cube a day and see how that works out. Thanks for the input Copperband bt.

Rowaphose and phosban are the best GFO in the market

And as I told yo try the Red Sea Po4 and no3 remover it's really good

[CStrickland]

Originally Posted by Copperband bt

Rowaphose and phosban are the best GFO in the market

And as I told yo try the Red Sea Po4 and no3 remover it's really good

Can I ask how much you spend on all this stuff CBT?
I looked at the gfo reactors for a minute a while ago, but never got into all that

[Scorpius]

I'm trying to buck the trend of chemical filtration. I only run Chaeto in my fuge, filter socks, and a protein skimmer along with my four mp-10's. I don't use carbon or gfo currently because the more I add to my system the more chances for screwing things up. Keep it simple stupid.

I keep an eye on algae growth in the display as my indicator of nutrient levels.

[Copperband bt]

Chaeto will help 2

[Copperband bt]

Originally Posted by CStrickland

Can I ask how much you spend on all this stuff CBT?
I looked at the gfo reactors for a minute a while ago, but never got into all that

Rowaphose 12ib will cost yo 159 $ that can cover yo for a year
Phosban 1.1 ib about 36$ can use it for three month
Rea sea phose and nitrate remover about 15 $ and that's four month

The reactor is about 50 $

But you don't need all of them to can go with GFO only
I just like to get every thing and give it try and I am alwasy have stock
Of every thing cause it's hard to get them in my country it's took me a month
To get the stuff

[erndog1001]

If those reading are correct. Then I wouldn't be worried about them at all They are very low!!