I'm dying on this hill - Phosphate is more important than alkalinity

[Reefology1]

@Belgian Anthias in post #241 and #243, you refer to AAM as both active aquarium management and active algae management. Can you please clarify if they are the same thing? And how "you", in greater detail, apply AAM in your reef aquarium?

Thank you

 

[KrisReef]

It all looks good until I see; " PO4 0 ppm" in another thread HERE

Merry Christmas

 

[Potatohead]

Noticed someone else bumped this so I will provide an update:

My tank is still rocking. I legitimately enjoy the hobby now and the work I put into the aquarium is like thirty minutes a week. This is awesome.

I haven't checked my nutrients in at least three months. Things seem to have stabilized around 12 and .1 so I just let it roll. I check my alk about twice a week and cal/mag maybe once a month. I still dose phosphate but it is a very small amount, I'm sure I could stop if I wanted but the dosing container is enough for like six months.

About four or five months ago I switched water changes to every two weeks instead of one. Shortly after, related or unrelated, my chaeto all melted away over the course of maybe 2-3 months. Because of this I have been getting a bit more green cyano on the rocks than usual, but it's not so bad and my corals are still happy so I have just been letting it go through a rebalance or whatever needs to happen there.

All in all getting some phosphate in the tank was without a doubt the best thing I have ever done for the tank.

 

[drawman]

Noticed someone else bumped this so I will provide an update:

My tank is still rocking. I legitimately enjoy the hobby now and the work I put into the aquarium is like thirty minutes a week. This is awesome.

I haven't checked my nutrients in at least three months. Things seem to have stabilized around 12 and .1 so I just let it roll. I check my alk about twice a week and cal/mag maybe once a month. I still dose phosphate but it is a very small amount, I'm sure I could stop if I wanted but the dosing container is enough for like six months.

About four or five months ago I switched water changes to every two weeks instead of one. Shortly after, related or unrelated, my chaeto all melted away over the course of maybe 2-3 months. Because of this I have been getting a bit more green cyano on the rocks than usual, but it's not so bad and my corals are still happy so I have just been letting it go through a rebalance or whatever needs to happen there.

All in all getting some phosphate in the tank was without a doubt the best thing I have ever done for the tank.

Remind me are you dosing NO3 as well to keep it form bottoming out with the PO4 additions?

 

[pap2]

have had a 30gal tank for a long time now. corals seem to always die on me.
parameters are constant. salinity.33-35. calcium 400-430 alk 8.9-9.6. nitrate 10.
po4-0. just started dosing po4. hope it helps. also have dinos!

 

[Potatohead]

Remind me are you dosing NO3 as well to keep it form bottoming out with the PO4 additions?

no, I have never dosed nitrate, but I can see that some tanks might need to.

 

[Potatohead]

Bumping this up to provide another update...

Maybe around Christmas my chaeto all died off. Not really sure why but the tank was still doing well so I didn't worry about it and decided to run the tank without a 'fuge to see how it did. After a couple months of that and having some green cyano here and there I decided to restart the fuge maybe a couple months ago. It is growing well and very dark green, not really sure why it died off before.

Anyway the corals have been doing well, maybe slightly less polyp extension in SPS, I figured my nutrients were a little high from not having the 'fuge running. I never actually checked because I am kind of lazy (lol).

Last night I decided to test for the first time in probably... At least three months. Maybe more like five, I honestly can't remember. Nitrate at its usual level of around 12... But I was surprised to find phosphate at .015-.02. I tested the latter three times to confirm. When the fuge died off I did reduce my phosphate dose by 50% but never turned it back up when I put chaeto back in. So I turned it back to where it was and I guess we'll see over the next few weeks if I get some of that polyp extension back.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

Any suggestions on which phosphate additive to use that can be easily ordered online or found locally?

If one uses natural aragonite or and shell grit to support alkalinity phosphorus is released. Using natural calcium carbonate substrate in a biofilter phosphate is produced.
There are many formula for the cultivation of phytoplankton or for AAM, active algae management; containing all phosphorus needed, such as Guillard's F2