Something is wrong...

Have you changed your RO filters lately and is the unit Plummer right? Also would check RO water for TDS I have a tester but am too far away. You can always run gfo to help if it is a phosphate issue.

Have you checked to see if you have any stray electricity in your tank? If it's a small amount of electricity it will irritate everything and kill your more sensitive stuff over time. It's the last thing people normally check but one of the more common problems people get.if you think about all the electrical things we put in our tanks it's easy to understand how this can become a problem all to often! I hope this isn't your problem but I do hope you figure it out soon.

When I had this problem I found out cause I was cleaning in the tank and touched something metal with my other wet hand! Probably woulda sucked if it was allot of electricity!?! It was just a tiny shock but with it being constant and everything in your tank being so small and for the most part sensitive it doesn't take much to mess things up.

If you don't want to test it the way I did,(wet hands w/one touching metal)? Then you'll need one of these! I bought this one just so I could test for stray electricity in the event I need to.

Digital multi meter, bought on eBay and wasn't very expensive at all.

Lindsay, I may have one of those too! Let me check when I get home. I also have a KH test.

I disagree with the stray voltage theory. As an engineer this is my two cents on the stray voltage. Yes there is going to be some stray voltage that is present in everyones tank. Most commonly this is caused by induction. Induction is produced by the proximity of an electric or magnetic field. Power heads and large return pumps are the most likely spot as they produce both an electric and magnetic field.

However there is no place for this electricity to go. This means that there is only a potential for the electricty to actually be present inside the tank. In order for electrons to flow you need a load, a source and a ground.

A misconception that reefers do is they see stray voltage in the tank by using a multimeter. The reason you are seeing this voltage is because you are grounding the circuit with your probes on the multimeter and allowing the flow of electrons. So now the potential has turned into a constant flow of electricty. Seeing this they go ahead and add a grounding probe.

This is good for the reefer but not for the fish. What you just did is now created a place for this stray voltage to go and gives this voltage a safe path to continuously follow changing the potential into actual voltage/current flow. Like I mentioned above you now have a source, a load, and a ground.

Why is it good for the reefer? Well in an tank that is not grounded, you put your hands in the water and happen to not be standing on something that is insulated you actually ground the loop of stray voltaged and it passes through you and you get shocked. By doing this you take the potential and create a circuit with you being the "ground". Having the ground probe in there will prevent only you from not being affected from a shock since there is already a ground present.

I would be more concerned with the elevated levels of phosphate. A measurement of .25 is very high for posphates. If this level is allowed to stay constant then thats when the damage to your coral will start happening. You do not want to have any elevated phosphate levels for an extended period of time. What you need to do is find out the source of the phosphates. My guess its your water source and perhaps some filters need replacing. Like someone mentioned the easy way to determine this is to test the water coming out of the ro system.

I hate phosphates, but they love me. Not do much that they are lethal tho

Sent from my HTC ONE