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Please keep me postedyea me too. I just mixed some up. I kind of just winged it and dosed a tiny bit. I mixed 1 tsp into 3 1/8 cup ro water and dosed .25 ml into 12 gallons. Still no reading. So I just dosed .5 ml and will test again tomorrow.
When using calculators for phosphate, beware that sometimes they do not distinguish the different forms. E.g., Na3PO4 vs Na2HPO4 vs NaH2PO4. They may call them all sodium phosphate.
That said, dosing phosphate to a reef cannot be exact anyway since some (often most of it) of it is going to bind to rocks and sand if you are trying to raise levels. So you will usually need a lot more than you calculate.
Try using this calculator:
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm
and pick the entry for potassium phosphate. It is assuming that means KH2PO4.
It turns out that entry is almost exactly correct for Na2HPO4 (disodium phosphate; it is only off by 4.4%, which is insignificant for our purposes).
It can be all of those explanations, but rock binding alone can take many whole ppm down to 0.1 ppm. So it is a big effect.
There’s no way to calculate since every tank will have a different amount of exposed calcium carbonate surfaces.
IMO - be carefully - at the moment you are filling up all of your reservoirs of PO4. when they are filled up - you can´t use the dosing you use at the moment. IMO - if you start to read some P or PO4 - you are close to the max of the reservoirs.
Sincerely Lasse
So what you are saying, @Lasse , is that I'm coming close to the point at which I'll have PO4 in my system?
In a living system - there is a lot of reservoirs for P. Bound to substrate through metal bondings, bound in decaying organic matters and some more ways. When you for a long time run with an aggressive P removing methodology you will empty the reservoirs through equilibrium processes and when you start adding P again - the reservoirs will be filled up. Fill up a glass with water with a constant stream of water and you will understand what I mean. This mean that when you reach "the spill over point" - you should only add the amount that is normal used by you system. I use to try to balance between 0.04 and 0.1 as PO4. if I do that - I know there is reservoirs still in the system - fixing the P if my equipment fail or the need for P increases. If I read 0 - I know that my reservoirs are consumed
Do not panic - just apply your normal methods for taking away P from your system. GFO or AL based media. Panic will do more harm than the actually content - take a beer and take it with equanimity - The forbidden s-t word just happens now and then
Sincerely Lasse
Depend of whom you ask You can see in my build tread how my tank looks like. I run between 0.1 to 0.04 - sometimes up to 0.15 as ppm PO4. NO3 around 1 - 15 ppm - goal 4-5 ppm. In the first page of my build tread - there is a video of my old tank. At that time - it had 2.14 as PO4 and NO3 - who knows - never measured.Thank you for the helpful advice, @Lasse . Also, is 0.1 ppm seemingly a safe range to let it fall naturally (e.g., my carbon dosing and algae turf scrubbing?
Is there any need to worry if it keeps reading 0 on a Hanna ULR? I feed quite a bit and it always reads 0 but i have 3ppm nitrate.Depend of whom you ask You can see in my build tread how my tank looks like. I run between 0.1 to 0.04 - sometimes up to 0.15 as ppm PO4. NO3 around 1 - 15 ppm - goal 4-5 ppm. In the first page of my build tread - there is a video of my old tank. At that time - it had 2.14 as PO4 and NO3 - who knows - never measured.
No panic - let i be and measure tonight just before the light leave their max.
Sincerely Lasse