Dosing Phosphorus in a Hungry Tank

[mocha 75]

New tank. Nitrates are at .05 and phosphate is 0.

I’ve got macros and Marco’s dry live rock sucking up the phosphate. I use RO/DI as my tip off with a ato. Salinity is 1.026.

How much phosphate should I be dosing here? I’ve got seachem reef phosphate. I’ve been doing 3ml for the past two days just once a day.

So, up it? If so by how much? 5ml? Daily? Twice a day?

There’s no fish. Just macros. So no feeding of a fish to help naturally boost that read up.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’d dose 0.05 to 0.1 ppm per day for a few days while monitoring 24 h after dosing and before the next dose. Slow the dose if you see it rising, and stop at your target.

 

[rfisher3]

I’d dose 0.05 to 0.1 ppm per day for a few days while monitoring 24 h after dosing and before the next dose. Slow the dose if you see it rising, and stop at your target.

Are you saying to dose the required amount of phos to raise it to those levels? Then do that daily? If after 24 hours the tank is back to 0 you dose more the next time? How often after dosing do you test?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are you saying to dose the required amount of phos to raise it to those levels? Then do that daily? If after 24 hours the tank is back to 0 you dose more the next time? How often after dosing do you test?

If phosphate is undetectable with a good kit, such as the Hanna ULR, id dose 0.1 ppm, measure reasonably quickly to confirm the kit is working, then remeasure 24 h later, and if zero, keep repeating that until you get a detectable number 24 h after the
Last dose.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

New tank. Nitrates are at .05 and phosphate is 0.

I’ve got macros and Marco’s dry live rock sucking up the phosphate. I use RO/DI as my tip off with a ato. Salinity is 1.026.

How much phosphate should I be dosing here? I’ve got seachem reef phosphate. I’ve been doing 3ml for the past two days just once a day.

So, up it? If so by how much? 5ml? Daily? Twice a day?

There’s no fish. Just macros. So no feeding of a fish to help naturally boost that read up.

How are your phosphates looking today?

 

[mocha 75]

New tank. Nitrates are at .05 and phosphate is 0.

I’ve got macros and Marco’s dry live rock sucking up the phosphate. I use RO/DI as my tip off with a ato. Salinity is 1.026.

How much phosphate should I be dosing here? I’ve got seachem reef phosphate. I’ve been doing 3ml for the past two days just once a day.

So, up it? If so by how much? 5ml? Daily? Twice a day?

There’s no fish. Just macros. So no feeding of a fish to help naturally boost that read up.

How are your phosphates looking today?

Currently I use the Seifert to test. I was using API but wanted a backup kit as a precaution.

Looks like my phosphates are .25.

Once I was consistently getting a read above 0 I stopped dosing phosphates daily. I was doing 3ml.

I also began using red roids once a week to both feed the corals but to also keep phosphate in the system as the macros drink the phosphate heavily.