Phosphate Question

[cmart28]

On Dec 26 my Phosphate reading was 0, I just tested today and it jumped to .03. What would cause an increase? BTW my tank is two months old, and has been fully cycled for the last 3 weeks, also I use only Salifert tests. My other test results:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - .025
Alk - 9.6
SG - 1.026
Mag - 1305
Calcium - 430
pH - 8.0
Temp - 79.9

[zoomfish1]

Did you by chance just finish an algea bloom?

[cmart28]

Nope, I had a diatom outbreak in my refugium, which cleared up about a 2 weeks ago, but not much algae in my display.

[bertoni]

The phosphate is likely coming from food added to the tank. Sometimes, live rock seems to leach phosphate, though. This article might help:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2002/chem.htm

[cmart28]

Thank you for the article. My guess is it is coming from food, since I recently purchased 2 Clowns last Saturday and that is when I started adding food. I have cheato in my fuge, hopefully that will solve the problem. Should I be concerned that the level is .03PPM? I know ideally you want it at 0.

[Briankook]

Do you feed dried food or frozen?

[bertoni]

As long as you're not keeping stony corals and the tank doesn't have some pest like cyanobacteria causing problems, I wouldn't worry about that phosphate level.

[cmart28]

A combination of frozen food and also Formula One pellets.

[Tripspike]

One other thing of note...are you running a phos reactor..if not I seriously doubt you had a 0 phosphate level. Are you using the test correctly?

Trip

[cmart28]

No phos reactor, my phosphate had been 0, the Salifert test is pretty simple. Do you recommend a phos reactor?

[Briankook]

You might want to try stopping the use of dry food. Try feeding frozen food only for a couple weeks & see if that helps. I know 2 different people that have had phosphate issues & they determined it was from feeding only dried food. HTH

[cmart28]

I will give it a try, appreciate the help.

[Ti]

cut back on feeding