Sabi

What would you consider to be high phosphates?
Curious as mine seems to be hanging around 0.1+. I have no corals as yet, at least nothing i bought but there LR hitchhikers.

Taku

phosphate levels should always be as low as possible, below 1ppm for reef tank.
Tap water, fish food, medications, infrequent water changes are all factors that could cause phosphate to rise.

Sabi

My tanks nearly done cycling and I'm doing abt 20% water change a week buut my phosphates are staying at 0.1. Is this a cause to worry abt?

van637

no matter what i do or use my phosphates level is 0.1, dont know why

cerianthus

PO4 can come from tap water, fish food, and other additives. Water changes may not help if tap water has PO4. I don't think you should worry at that level. Have algae grow on the back of the tank as they will consume PO4.
Run PO4 test on tap water. If PO4 is high, use RO/DI (expensive to buy and run) or Tap Water Filter by API (less expensive to buy and run) to remove PO4 as well as other s in tap water.
If your water is very hard (high mineral content like in well water) it will be expensive to run due to fact that cartridges have to be replaced more often.

There are PO4 remover which you can add to filter which will adsorb PO4 oout of tank. You may want to look into this method also.