Phosphates quadrupled after water change

So I normally do a 5 gallon water change every other week on my 55 gallon tank. I decided to go ahead and knock out a 10 gallon change hoping to bring my Phosphates(.5 ppm) and Nitrates(80ppm) down. I had 5 gallons of water mixed and grabbed another 5 from the LFS. I scrubbed a few things down and the drained off 10 gallons. Filled it back up and let it run over night before I checked everything again. I got up this morning and tested everything. My Nitrates were still at 80 ppm and my phosphate jumped to 2 ppm. I was like ***. I do remember that the water I got from the LFS did have a very faint odor to it. Is it possible that they gave me some "dirty" water and totally screwed my numbers?

 

Sounds like thats what happened but for 5g to bump it up that much that phosphate ppm must have been 20+ in the lfs water and thats BAD. Test again cause thats almost hard to believe. Old test kit?

 

Go back to your LFS.

 

Can you define that?

Whatever it is, if it's not normal routine, you may have spread phosphate/nitrate-laden detritus from a low-flow area into the water column where the trapped nutrients could be released.

I, too, would recommend getting a second opinion on those numbers.

 

I guess I screwed up something on the test. Retested and it is at .25 ppm. I was really worried and upset if I would have gotten bad water.

 

I scrubbed the hang on the back filter where the bio-wheels are located and then scrubbed all the glass down.

 

You had me until I read somethning about Biowheels!

My advice, FWIW (which ain't much), is Find another technology, such as Live Rock and macroalgae, Protein skimmer, maybe an Algae turf scrubber?

Do you have your won RO/DI? Though it might be good, I wouldn't trust most water from most LFS.

 

I have about 70lbs of live rock, a hob refugium with macro in it, a hob skimmer and a hob filter. My technology was great until I changed the water but I retested and it was less than the day before. Don't have my own RO/DI yet. All of my stuff is a work in progress. Only been at this for about 4 months. But I will get it eventually.

 

80 ppm is really high nitrates. How often are you feeding. That's a good way to raise both things your having problems with.

 

I feed my anemone once a week. My wife's flame scallop gets fed daily along with my clowns. The clowns don't even get a much of a pinch of food. I have slacked off on the clowns getting fed to once every other day. I know the nitrates are high and did back off on the feeding but it just stumped me on the phosphates. Might need to retest everything.