Location
Manhattan
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Hey, I had knee surgery and have been on crutches for awhile and haven't been able to do my normal water change schedule. After about 3 weeks I finally checked and saw my phosphate level was 0.7ppm! I immediately performed a 5 gallon water change (30gallon DT + ~15gallon sump) twice daily for a week and also started adding phosguard. My phosphate is still reading 0.3-0.35 ppm I can't get it lower than 0.3 ppm (I've also checked my RO/DI top off and that's not the source).

I was finally able today to maneuver (wasn't able to before with the leg cast) and remove my carbon and gfo reactor and I realized they both are extremely dirty with a ton of buildup inside, brown particles. I realize I haven't changed them for 2-3 months. Does anyone know if this is may be the underlying issue or seen anything else like this/know possible culprits? I've also lowered feeding substantially, which hasn't helped, and at this point done 2 x 5Gallon x 7 days water changes, and can't figure out what's going on besides possibly the dirty reactors. Many corals are also not looking good. Thanks for any help!
 

Timfish

Experienced Reefer
Location
Asutin, TX
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I wouldn't worry about it. Unless it was increasing steadily over .5 mg/l (FWIW I generally like to keep PO4 around .1mg/l but also rarely test it.) Here's some research on phosphorus you may find informative:

An Experimental Mesocosm for Longterm Studies of Reef Corals

Phosphate Deficiency:
Nutrient enrichment can increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching:

Ultrastructural Biomarkers in Symbiotic Algae Reflect the Availability of Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients and Particulate Food to the Reef Coral Holobiont:

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

Effects of phosphate on growth and skeletal density in the scleractinian coral Acropora muricata: A controlled experimental approach

High phosphate uptake requirements of the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata

Phosphorus metabolism of reef organisms with algal symbionts


Sponge symbionts and the marine P cycle

Phosphorus sequestration in the form of polyphosphate by microbial symbionts in marine sponges

Fig 4 from "Phosphorus metabolism of reef organisms with algal symbionts"
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Location
Manhattan
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Wow Timfish thank you for all this great info! Excited to start reading up today. I definitely have seen a little bleaching in some of my corals especially it seems the ones in the higher light area though those are probably also the more sensitive ones. Since removing the dirty Gfp and carbon rector I’ve been able to get it down to 0.15ppm so I think I can get it down to that target of around 0.1ppm with a couple more water changes now that I’m hoping I found and removed the source. It was worrying doing all those water changes and not seeing any big decreases… hopefully everything’s back to being stable for now. Happy holidays!
 

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