reefocd

What do you use for flow in your tank? I have a feeling you need to stir up a lot of trapped detritus in the rockwork and corals. I wouldn't mess with the sandbed if I were you... how deep is it?

When you really cloud up the tank, have your drains run into a filter sock for a few hours. Or if you have a canister filter, run it after a clean up session for a few hours.

You can use a powerhead to blast all of your rockwork from many angles. Do this often, two or three times a week for the next month. The more you export, the less waste is decaying in the system.

I would suggest using Phosphate Control to knock the PO4 level down to 0 overnight. It'll turn the phosphate to a solid for your skimmer to export. If you want to dose 50% to cut the PO4 level in half and then dose again the next night, that's fine too.

I think I may have a similar problem. Were you using normal Phosphate test kits and getting zero readings? I just got the alk checker and like it a lot so I may grab the phosphate one too.

Marc,

Thanks for the ideas. Have 50px (Bluelines) as closed loop and tunze 6085. Also wave box being cleaned then implemented. Return from floor below is 50px, however, due to head pressure returnand flow through sump is 400 gph max. All my lighting is led. Original sand bed from four years ago. Added one bag of active sand month ago for first time. Would say two inch sand bed. What overnight Phos control product have you had experience with? Another science question on moving sand around - If I during a water change siphoned substantial sand from display and let it settle in container for hours or a day or two and wanted to use in an empty sump chamber as a DSB (6 inches) which is dark most of the time, will it cause a spike of something? I would hope not, as it's already cycled?

Mits,

I have substantial colorblindness. Apparently while reading my own phosphate API test results, had flights of grandeur regarding a clean tank. Normally enlist friends to help read tests. I also bought the Hanna Alk checker. It's independence day for us colorblind folk, YIPPIE and WAHOO .....

The product I'm talking about is BlueLife USA's Phosphate Control. You may find it as Phosphate Rx now. http://www.reefaddicts.com/entry.php...hate-look-like

Definitely work on blowing everything often for the next few weeks. It will make a big difference and the more you do it, the less you'll be able to disrupt. The goal is to have nice clean water even after powerheading everything. The wavebox will help elevate the detritus for your other pumps to force the particulates out of the display and then down into the sump. The perfect place for a filter sock during these efforts.

With your sandbed only 2" deep, you can siphon out detritus but usually I don't recommend disturbing the sand at all. Better to have a cleanup crew do that for you on a continual basis.

If you want to use some sand in your sump's 6" area, do more than siphon it out. Rinse it out with freshwater to export all the waste you can until it is just clean sand. Don't move the sand to the sump without cleaning it out though, as you'll end up with some ammonia spikes.

What is your standard method for phosephate and nitrate removal? do you have a refugium with macro algae that you havest? algae scrubber? Do you do large water changes? Vodka dosing? Bio pellets? Not a deep sand bed obviously. Without some continuous method of nitrate and phosephate removal you're just going to be continually treating problems.

I have a 10g refugium chamber in my sump that had miracle mud, 2 inches of sand on top and had chaeto growing. I kept having cyno in the fuge only? Tried new bulbs, higher flow, etc... I have just recently moved my sump to another side of fish room and emptied the fuge after 4 years. Took the big ball of chaeto and temporarily placed in my main display.... Tangs are snacking .... Fuge is empty. I will eventually hookup a inline frag tank and may grow some macro algae in a section .... If I go 6 inch dsb in the old fuge, I will keep all of sump dark. Fuge light was encouraging some algae/coralline in my skimmer. It's basically telling me that my husbandry needs to get better. I may of in four years tried to vacume the fuge once Classic Import/Export issue... I am going to focus on detritus export. I have over 100lbs of LR. I could also have simply to high of bio load ... Only six fish in 160g of water, four of which are tangs. Kind of tricky how to isolate the cause, especially, if the SB is cause. Can start to feed less too... Going to start bio pellets this week.

Tangs are pretty high bio load fish. lots of poop. A deep sand bed and live rock alone was never enough de-nitrification for my tank, I always had algae problems. And I've never read anything suggesting they do anything for phosephate. I finally went with an algae scrubber to eliminate my algae problems, but the bio pellets or a large refugium full of macro's accomplish the same thing. The algae scrubber was just the cheapest option for me, and from my results a very powerful one. I had both my rocks and sandbed leaching phosphate, but the scrubber cleaned it up in about 4 months.