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.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[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]

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[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


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[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


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[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


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[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.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[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


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice