Liverock leaching phosphates

[Bray84]

Hi I was wondering if there's a way to test if live rock is leaching phosphates as last few months have been fighting phosphate problems and keep erring bad algae.


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[Macscale]

Liverock normally doesn't... It's base rock that does.

You can test it by putting a rock in a bucket of fresh saltwater and after a few days test for phosphates.

[BigRedsReefs10]

Originally Posted by Macscale

Liverock normally doesn't... It's base rock that does.

You can test it by putting a rock in a bucket of fresh saltwater and after a few days test for phosphates.

Sounds like a good plan

[Bray84]

Ok thanks don't know what kind it is just bought it as live rock. How long before I should test it.


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[carey]

Depends on where you got the rock from too. I got mine from a guy and it leeched phosphates for like 2 years! lol
I like the idea mentioned above, take a piece or two and put them in fresh saltwater for like 4-5 days. then test the phosphate levels of that water. Be sure to test the fresh clean saltwater first, you might have phosphates in your incoming water.

[Bray84]

I got it from my lfs, same with water and tested it and it's fine.going to do what's been said and see what comes out


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[Bray84]

Anyways if the rock is leaching what's best thing to do to get it back to normal.

[Bray84]

Well rocks been in for aday now and test was .10 on hanna checker will test over next few days as cleaned tubes today so might b false reading


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[Bray84]

Well been in three days now and at .13 going test again tomorrow see if change.

So to get rock in tank sorted do I just run some phos remover and keep doing wc till stop leaching


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[carey]

Water changes will be key. Just gotta dilute the pollution which is exactly what water changes do.
I would run some GFO or some other phosphate sucking up media as well.

[Bray84]

Thank you for getting Back to me, at the min using agent green but going go back to using ultra phos and try do 15-30% wc aweek for next few weeks then will test rock again and see if any better but no it's going take ages as been running phos remover but only doing 10-15% wc each week.


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[carey]

Bear in mind the rock can only leech so much at a time, so you are waiting for it to exhaust itself. No other way than to keep up on the changes and hope they release all the phosphates quickly.

[Bray84]

Just going run some phos remover and change it every 3 weeks with 15-30% wc a week and will see that's it like in few weeks time.thanks again


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