High phosphates - a couple of questions please.

I am not a fan of repeated water changes to solve a problem (which they never do). We want to try and keep the water chemistry as stable as possible. Many aquarists won't even do any water changes as they believe they have adequate filtering to achieve stable and almost pristine water conditions. Just a heads up to avoid excessive water changes and disrupting the tanks chemistry.

 

It is a smaller tank (29g). I usually do a water change about every 7-10 days - depending on detritus etc.

My last water change was a week ago - if I should wait a few more days, i am fine with that. I have not increased the frequency or amount of the water that I use.

Maybe i should wait til the weekend which gives me closer to 10 days +

I have cut back feeding to every other day like stated in my first post here.

I am taking the small reduction in phosphates as a positive - I guess I really dont know if phosphate reduces quickly or not. I am not running a reactor - just a small bag of the phosphate media along with a small bag of charcoal in my modded AC 30 and it is set to low flow.

The fish and corals seem ok at the moment although i reallllly want to get this phosphates thing taken care of.

thanks for the input!

 

onefishtwofish

once you have your PO4 at 0 - water changes of 5% per week or 10% every 14 days would be great IMO so in a 30 gallon (yes its late here so I want easy maths)
thats 1.5 gallons per week or 3 gallons every other week

phosphate removers have a capacity they can absorb and then they stop
a reactor is better because the media is lose and thus does not clog up
it will still work in a mesh bag in your skimmer but the bag will clog up and prevent the media being effective - I use GFO in a cannister and rinse the mesh bag each week at water change time

when the PO4 levels stops dropping then its time to discard it and use new media
so test weekly and if you find 0 change or worse thats its creeping up again then its time for renewal

Steve

 

A quick update:

I am pleased to be able to say that I purchased the unit that Unclejed pasted here and installed it this past weekend.

I just had the water tested with the LFS Hanna unit this evening and my phosphates are down from .50 when i first posted here to a much better .13!
My calcium is 480 and Alk is right where it needs to be as well.

For anyone who is contemplating the purchase of the multi media HOB unit, I for one am having a positive experience with it.

Now to keep getting those phosphates down even lower!

thanks all, for the encouragement and suggestions!