Need help with phosphates

[diana a]

It’s easy. Just mix some muriatic acid with some water in a bucket and let the rocks soak for 20 mins. The acid should be used up pretty fast. Then rinse with water. This will remove most of the organically from the rock.

I'm wondering about how much good has been done with an acid bath, if clean rock is rinsed with tap water. I know you didn't specify tap water, that's why I wanted to touch on it. I'm thinking that heavy metals and chemicals found in tap water will be soaked up by that clean rock as if it were a sponge. Knowing the cost to produce RO/DI, I would still recommend rinsing rock with it, rather than tap water.

 

[horseplay]

It will remove the layer of biomass from the surface of the rock. Look at how much life is growing on your live rock. I would think rock itself does not leach phosphate. I am not a scientist but I have done this a few times. So coming from limited experience.

The tap water left on the rock will be minimum and diluted in the tank. I wash filter sock in tap water all the time and never rinse it with ro/di water. Of course you can always rinse with ro/di and it shouldn't take much of it.

 

[Dodgefate]

So, today is the first time I have had a chance to research a lot. It was recommended to me to research the Red Field Ratio. After reading about it a lot, I have kind of come to this conclusion: I have green hair algae, a good amount of it growing on one rock in particular. I recently (less than a week ago) added a Yellow Eyed Kole Tang to the tank to try to eat some of that Algae. He has started to nip at it, but has only eaten only a small percentage of it.
From what I read, is this: My green hair algie is basically eating up all of my No3. This has put the bacteria in a sort of hibernation and that is why my Po4 will not come down. The only way I can get my Po4 to come down, would be by raising my No3. Now if I give that one troublesome rock a cleaning in Muriatic Acid, it will kill off the algae, raising the No3 and wake the bacteria up. Only thing I'm worried about is it jumping up too fast. Also, its a great food source for the tang. As for the corals, My GSP is growing, my Green Hairy Mushrooms 2 out of 3 split and are flourishing, the other red mushroom looks the same, The palys are growing new heads, in just 2 weeks, my really fancy zoa's sprouted 5 new heads, my devils hand leathers have grown 10 times in size. Only thing that hasn't changed is the pagoda cup. The war coral has receaded, but I was told to try to move it to an area with less light and did.
All that taken into consideration, should I just dip that one rock and hope for the best? Should I try to scrub off some of the algae? Should I just stay on course where I am at since everything is thriving? Sorry for all the questions... I'm really new to corals and trying to form the best plan of action.

 

[Dodgefate]

This is the rock that is the magnet to the Algie. It sits on the top of the tank and I habe been using a light with more white then anything else up untill about a week ago..

 

[horseplay]

I am dealing with the same issue with the 80g tank I just setup. The rocks used were from my old tank but I know it shouldn't leach too much phosphate. However phosphate was 0.54 so I ordered a nitrate test kit. Nitrate measured zero. So I know it's from the rocks but I was hoping that this is a one time event since these old rocks didn't give me a problem before but I didn't clean them. Two days ago I started with one cup of GFO tonight phosphate is 0.03. (this tells you how fast GFO absorbs phospdate). What this means is the rock does not leach too much anymore. I have an algae bloom in the water column now (I dosed some nitrate because I don't like 0 nitrate) but I am sure it will died out soon. Might run a cheapo UV sterilizer to speed up the process. Once this is taken care of I plan to use a refugium combined with a little nopox dosing as needed and turn off the skimmer most of the time. I will only have one fish in the tank.

 

[horseplay]

So, today is the first time I have had a chance to research a lot. It was recommended to me to research the Red Field Ratio. After reading about it a lot, I have kind of come to this conclusion: I have green hair algae, a good amount of it growing on one rock in particular. I recently (less than a week ago) added a Yellow Eyed Kole Tang to the tank to try to eat some of that Algae. He has started to nip at it, but has only eaten only a small percentage of it.
From what I read, is this: My green hair algie is basically eating up all of my No3. This has put the bacteria in a sort of hibernation and that is why my Po4 will not come down. The only way I can get my Po4 to come down, would be by raising my No3. Now if I give that one troublesome rock a cleaning in Muriatic Acid, it will kill off the algae, raising the No3 and wake the bacteria up. Only thing I'm worried about is it jumping up too fast. Also, its a great food source for the tang. As for the corals, My GSP is growing, my Green Hairy Mushrooms 2 out of 3 split and are flourishing, the other red mushroom looks the same, The palys are growing new heads, in just 2 weeks, my really fancy zoa's sprouted 5 new heads, my devils hand leathers have grown 10 times in size. Only thing that hasn't changed is the pagoda cup. The war coral has receaded, but I was told to try to move it to an area with less light and did.
All that taken into consideration, should I just dip that one rock and hope for the best? Should I try to scrub off some of the algae? Should I just stay on course where I am at since everything is thriving? Sorry for all the questions... I'm really new to corals and trying to form the best plan of action.

With the red field ratio. fish waste (mostly pee) will be close to the red field ratio. However if you have a big inbalance of PO4 then you should use GFO to remove it first. You're correct that you want a balanced ratio of NO3 and PO4.

 

[Dodgefate]

Ill run out Thursday and try some GFO. I used it while bring the numbers down from over 10 to where its at now.. Didn't see that much of a change.. THe biggest change came from the Kent Phosphate sponge, that's why I have been using it in the reactor now.

 

[horseplay]

Ill run out Thursday and try some GFO. I used it while bring the numbers down from over 10 to where its at now.. Didn't see that much of a change.. THe biggest change came from the Kent Phosphate sponge, that's why I have been using it in the reactor now.

If Kent works I see no reason to change. I don't know what it is though. I have only used GFO it might not be the best thing in the world but I know how it works. And it leaches a little iron into the water which helps the macroalgae growth. I do want to clarify that I don't use GFO on a regular basis. Only one offs to target remove PO4 from the water column.