My tank is mainly sps.... But I got my phoshates tested today with the Ulr hanna test kit. Reading came back as 0.61 ppm. I think that's the highest the kit can read. Now my question is.. In what time period can I drop phos to be closer to 0.10 range or there about. I use lanthanium chloride to lower phos.
High phosphate
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I would shoot for just a few ppm a day say 5 at the most to start and then go a little slower the closer you get to 0. Curious to what others say.
Good advice, that i have found to be just as bad to going down to fast. The bad stuff just happens a little slower when the numbers bounce up and down.
Dexter_SA
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I've been having some issues with phos. Always battled to keep it stable. It seems like I'm either over dosing lanthanium chloride or under shooting it. Been a battle to find the middle. And I suspect the main problem is probably the amount of fish I have. And the fish must eat... Lol
phillygeeks
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If your tank is doing well then move very slow with anything you do or don't do anything at all. If its just doing ok or struggling then I think you need to find out more why phos is so high and then treat it slowly if things are ok, maybe quicker if things are dying quick but I think you need to have an end point where you decide you want to keep things stable and just stick there fora bit....but key is finding out source of high phos in this instance and I don't think I would assume it's the amount of fish
Dexter_SA
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I must say i am a bit puzzled....i'm by no means a sps guru. My sps has color. Not the dullest i've ever seen, but neither the brightest. But in my head my sps should be brown. Its a bit confusing to me
phillygeeks
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What's the volume of the tank? Type of rock and and was it established and for how long? How many and size of fish? What are you feeding? I think all these questions can help
If it were me I would start with 2 or 3 ppm a day but you might be ok with more. Never used lc before though so maybe someone can help more that uses it.
I would shoot for about .1 ppm per day. I recently did this going from about 0.5 ppm down to 0.05 as of today using lanthanum chloride with no ill effects. I suspect you could go faster but slow down around the 0.1 ppm mark.
You want to lower it slow enough that it does not spike down when you add them LC and then spike back up with the aragonite releases some of the bound-up phosphate. The level will depend on how high it is, how much aragonite you have in your tank that has bound it up for you in the past. Each tank is different.
Please study up on aragonite buffering/binding of phosphate before you start. You are dealing with more than just what is in the water. The rock either came bound up from the source if it was dead/dry or has been binding for years in captivity.
I would lower this over a few months.
Please study up on aragonite buffering/binding of phosphate before you start. You are dealing with more than just what is in the water. The rock either came bound up from the source if it was dead/dry or has been binding for years in captivity.
I would lower this over a few months.
Dexter_SA
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When I read agent green instructions they say not to go faster than 1ppm. But I'm a bit confused. I'm sitting on let's say 0.61ppm. If it's save to drop by 1ppm. Does it mean I can go to 0ppm in one dose. Or what do they mean by 1ppm. Should I only go to 0.60ppm. Is that 1ppm? Sorry I'm a bit confused
This is the yo-yo effect I was referring to above. With each dose, you will potentially have a drop in phosphate, followed by an increase in phosphate. This is fresh in my mind because I just encountered it and if you have a ton of phosphate bound up in the rock/leaching out, you should probably dose lanthanum even slower than you otherwise would because of the yo-yo you're going to experience in phosphate levels.
That's why you're getting pummeled with questions and seemingly ancillary information, rather than just a .0x ppm/day response. Either way, I hope it works out.
The faster that you go, the more that you are going to make your corals and inverts mad. Lowering is no problem, but lowering too fast usually is.
Go slow at first and feel it out. No harm in going slow. Like everything important in life, there is no absolute formula or number that moves from situation to situation. You will get a feel for how much of a dose will lower the tank water and then how much it will bounce back.
Go slow at first and feel it out. No harm in going slow. Like everything important in life, there is no absolute formula or number that moves from situation to situation. You will get a feel for how much of a dose will lower the tank water and then how much it will bounce back.
SeaDweller
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so use a dose where you lower it to maybe 0.30 ppm and then to 0.15 ppm, and then again to 0.07 or so, and don't bottom out. if you're at 0.60, don't dose it so that you CAN remove 1.0 ppm. that would get you to zero, but probably transiently as it will release from the substrate and then it see saws up and down
Dexter_SA
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sorry for all the questions but im really trying to get the hang on this phos. So in the past before i had sps i use to run ATI phosphate stop wich is gfo. But i stopped using it because my softies really battled when i ran it. I then discovered lanthanium chloride wich gave me much more control. But to make a long story short. Wich is best to run....Lanthanium chloride or GFO? I still have both. But the GFO is in storage at the moement. Only thing with gfo i struggled with is the control. i always added to much to reactor or to little.
Either is fine, but you have to go slow. Slow is the key, not the product. It can take many attempts to get good at this, so error on the side of "too little."
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