Can you dose to much phosphate?

[Gools]

I'm adding 100ml a day of DIY Trisodium Phosphate and still not getting a reading. Just wondering if its safe to keep up'ing my dosage?

 

[bradreef]

Yes, you can dose to much. What size is the system. How are you testing?

 

[Gools]

260gal plus sump, around 300gal total.
Fighting Dinos right now so dosing silicates, which apparently makes my Hanna not reliable so just got a Salifert phosphate test kit.

 

[rzimm33]

I once dosed phosphate a bit too aggressively and lost a few SPS. Not saying it was the exact reason, but the rapid spike could have played a role.

 

[bradreef]

I was dosing 25-30 ML on a previous system that was around 80-90 gallons. I split that up into 3 doses. The diy phos makes a difference though, because you can control the strength.

Yes- silicates throw off Hanna. Yes, salifert phos test is terrible. It's really hard to get an accurate reading and the numbers jump quickly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm adding 100ml a day of DIY Trisodium Phosphate and still not getting a reading. Just wondering if its safe to keep up'ing my dosage?

That doesn't tell us how much you are actually dosing unless you tell us the concentration of the DIY.

 

[Gools]

1.88g per litre solution

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Still doesn't tell us everything as there different hydration levels, but if we assume it is anhydrous as opposed to the decahydrate or something in between, we can determine a max potency.

1.88 g trisodium phosphate contains about 1.1 grams of phosphate.

Thus, the concentration of your dosing solution is about 1100 mg/L.

100 mL contains 110 mg.

Add 110 mg to 300 gallons (1135 L) and you are boosting phosphate by 0.1 ppm per day.

That seems like a reasonable dose and I'd just keep doing it.

How long have you been dosing it?

 

[Gools]

Ok sorry I’m using trisodium phosphate dodecahydrate if that’s what your asking.

I’ve been dosing phosphates for the last 2 months, just over a week ago I jumped it up from 60ml to 100ml

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ok sorry I’m using trisodium phosphate dodecahydrate if that’s what your asking.

I’ve been dosing phosphates for the last 2 months, just over a week ago I jumped it up from 60ml to 100ml

OK, that product is about half as potent so doubling the dose is a fine plan.

 

[Gools]

So are you saying I should maybe be dosing double that at 200ml a day?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So are you saying I should maybe be dosing double that at 200ml a day?

If you still detect none, yes.

 

[Gools]

Thank you very much!

 

[bkwonnn]

Just watched an interview with Lou ekus on brstv. Lou says something like that beneficial bacteria are capable of consuming long chain phosphate , and unwanted algae prefer short chained types of phosphate. Is that something to take in consideration when dosing phosphate?

 

[Borat]

Longer does not mean better, as some people may say

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Just watched an interview with Lou ekus on brstv. Lou says something like that beneficial bacteria are capable of consuming long chain phosphate , and unwanted algae prefer short chained types of phosphate. Is that something to take in consideration when dosing phosphate?

I don’t know exactly what chains he is referring to or what the evidence is, but the phosphate dosing in this thread is not any sort of chain.

 

[seahuy]

I was doing this too fighting sandbed dinos and dosing Trisodium phosphate with a heavy hand. I had gotten my phosphate up to .8ish over 7 days period. I think it causes one of my favia to start rtn but everything else seem to have made it through even a Barney acro. I didn’t do anything drastic to bring it down, just ran my fuge on 24/7 then down to 10hs.
I am now around .25 from 12days, seems to be going down about .05 per day.

Also, I add trisodim phosphate to my ATO to add a steady trace supply of phosphate so that might help it reduce slowly as well

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was doing this too fighting sandbed dinos and dosing Trisodium phosphate with a heavy hand. I had gotten my phosphate up to .8ish over 7 days period. I think it causes one of my favia to start rtn but everything else seem to have made it through even a Barney acro. I didn’t do anything drastic to bring it down, just ran my fuge on 24/7 then down to 10hs.
I am now around .25 from 12days, seems to be going down about .05 per day.

Also, I add trisodim phosphate to my ATO to add a steady trace supply of phosphate so that might help it reduce slowly as well

0.8 ppm is certainly far more than would be useful to fight dinos.