Bacto Balance with NP Plus?

[ckurtt70]

So I had been dosing Bacto Balance for a couple of months and had been seeing consistent phosphate levels of about 0.02 ppb. I wanted to nudge this up a bit so I added NP plus for a few days. Phosphates climbed to 0.04. Today I came home and the tank looked a little funny. I tested phosphates and they measured 0.0 !!! I then discovered that I had forgotten to stop dosing the bacto balance.

I wonder if this 'bottoming out' can be explained? By dosing both did I just hyper feed my bacteria causing them to suck all the phosphate out of the water? Idk.

I plan to continue with the NP plus tomorrow and see what the levels do. I have also halted the dosing of NP plus until I have some measurable phosphate.

 

[Pod_01]

So I had been dosing Bacto Balance for a couple of months and had been seeing consistent phosphate levels of about 0.02 ppb. I wanted to nudge this up a bit so I added NP plus for a few days. Phosphates climbed to 0.04. Today I came home and the tank looked a little funny. I tested phosphates and they measured 0.0 !!! I then discovered that I had forgotten to stop dosing the bacto balance.

I wonder if this 'bottoming out' can be explained? By dosing both did I just hyper feed my bacteria causing them to suck all the phosphate out of the water? Idk.

I plan to continue with the NP plus tomorrow and see what the levels do. I have also halted the dosing of NP plus until I have some measurable phosphate.

I would continue with the Plus NP but consider 1/2 to 1/4 of the specified dose and go from there. Also Plus NP provides phosphate that the regular PO4 kit does not pick up, so you are not going to measure any. At least it was explained to me that way. But the bacteria that consumes the PO4 has it available and in return corals can feed on the bacteria.
Good luck.