Help getting phosphate up (Please)

[Reefhaven]

Hey guys,
this stuff is stressing me out and things are not happy or dying. Going back to October 9th, tested (Hanna) NO3 and PO 4 and both read 0. Sps looking sad and some started dying. Brought brightwell neonitro and neophos to bring levels up. Dosed neonitro (75ml) to achieve 5ppm and neophos (22ml) to achieve .03ppm. Tested both after 24 hours and got 3.8ppm for NO3 and 0ppm for PO4. From reading the directions, I thought my tank is carbon limited so I dosed brigh reef biofuel. This time I dosed 70ml of neophos and in 24 hours got a reading of .07ppm In October 14th (Yay)! Things started looking a little better. Retested PO4 on October 23 when things started too fade again and got a reading of .04. i was thinking maybe my PO4 levels were maybe a little low so this time I was shooting for .1ppm so I dosed another 55ml of neophos. After 24 hours (October 25th) I tested PO4 and instead of going up got 0 reading! So tonight I dosed reef biofuel and 55ml of neophos. But in the meantime my nitrate WENT UP from 10.5ppm on October 20th to 12.1ppm on October 25th. I’m at a total lost guys.

my parameters…
alk 8 (was at 7.1 and bringing it back up to 8.5)
cal 440
mag 1350
Phosphate 0
nitrate 12.1

 

[Yazannreef]

I don't think the problem is with po4 and no3 rather than you Alk rising and your SPS not liking it.

I had similar situation and was bottomed out to 0 and blamed it on that until I found out that my Alk was way up at 9 and I decided to lowering "slowly" but SPS started dying left and right.

Now I'm holding all steady and my PO4 reads 0 but corals are happy( remember 0 is not really 0 with our hobby grade test kits( in my case Hanna utl phos).

 

[Yazannreef]

As far as brightwell stuff. Just keep dosing po4 and that will bring down no3 naturally.

Sometime it takes multiple dieses of it to really show up on your test kit.

I formally believe that your po4 is in the tank but the rocks/ substrate/ algae are consuming it faster than you can test it.

There is something called reserve phosphate and that is what the rocks and substrate suck up. The minute they get saturated then you will see free po4 I'm the water volume that you can test for!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Brought brightwell neonitro and neophos to bring levels up. Dosed neonitro (75ml) to achieve 5ppm and neophos (22ml) to achieve .03ppm. Tested both after 24 hours and got 3.8ppm for NO3 and 0ppm for PO4. From reading the directions, I thought my tank is carbon limited so I dosed brigh reef biofuel. This time I dosed 70ml of neophos and in 24 hours got a reading of .07ppm In October 14th (Yay)!

FWIW, carbon limitation is never a cause of low phosphate.

Just keep dosing the phosphate. A lot may be binding to rock and sand. The Brightwell products are pretty dilute and that's one reason i do not recommend them (the others being cost and unknown purity).

 

[Reefhaven]

FWIW, carbon limitation is never a cause of low phosphate.

Just keep dosing the phosphate. A lot may be binding to rock and sand. The Brightwell products are pretty dilute and that's one reason i do not recommend them (the others being cost and unknown purity).

Thanks Randy! What’s another product I can use to dose for phosphate?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks Randy! What’s another product I can use to dose for phosphate?

You can search for food grade sodium phosphate on amazon. There are several brands. Many people use Loudwolf:

 

[Lavey29]

It took me several weeks of double dosing neophos before I started seeing some measurable phosphate readings. Obviously some other methods would be daily coral feeding like red sea AB and some reef roids once or twice a week and that will boost phosphate to.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

You can search for food grade sodium phosphate on amazon. There are several brands. Many people use Loudwolf:

I just purchased this from your recommendation, is there an amount you recommend to 1 gallon of r.o? Any information on dosing amount?

All Thanks

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I just seen the calculator on another post somewhere you put it was a planted reef calculator or something like that, hard to find im looking......

 

[jmichaelh7]

Just feed reef roids and it’s OVER

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Just feed reef roids and it’s OVER

Is that to me? feeding Reef roids is a dangerous tight rope to walk, I use it once every 2 months

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

I just purchased this from your recommendation, is there an amount you recommend to 1 gallon of r.o? Any information on dosing amount?

All Thanks

I have a wonderful mixture of 5 tablespoons sodium nitrate (you dont need) and 1 teaspoon of trisodium phosphate to 1,500 ml of RODI. I dose 2 ML 12 times per day. Keeps JUST enough phosphates in my system. Obviously, your tanks uptake wont be the same as mine so you will need to adjust the dosage accordingly after some measurements over a period of time.

 

[jmichaelh7]

Is that to me? feeding Reef roids is a dangerous tight rope to walk, I use it once every 2 months

Your issue is phosphates right

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I have a wonderful mixture of 5 tablespoons sodium nitrate (you dont need) and 1 teaspoon of trisodium phosphate to 1,500 ml of RODI. I dose 2 ML 12 times per day. Keeps JUST enough phosphates in my system. Obviously, your tanks uptake wont be the same as mine so you will need to adjust the dosage accordingly after some measurements over a period of time.

Thanks for that , thats a good base line for me thank you

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Your issue is phosphates right

No issues with phosphates, I have to dose them daily.

I dont get my phosphates by feeding heavy I dont believe in the "just feed more " mentality I have a small amount of fish and cuc and feed them accordingly, and prefer to dose "clean" nitrates and phosphates in the form of liquid n03& p04..

No phosphate issues just a new product, with a different formula im not familiar with, I use store bought n03 p04 and pay top$ im trying to go a more diy route on this...

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Thanks for that , thats a good base line for me thank you

For reference, I have approximately 100gallon total volume (maybe a little less) in my system.