Low phosphate

[reefkeeperros]

Hi, noticed some stn on my acropora ,some montis and stylophora so tested the water everything was in check but the phosphate which was 0, tested with hanna ( po4 was 0.03). Could this be the reason for stn? How do I get my phosphate up? Started feeding twice a day and still, turning off my skimer at night as well and still can't get po4 up to detectable levels. TIA
Alk 7.3
Cal 460
Mag 1370
No3 0.25
Po3 0.00
Salinity 1.025

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

Is it a new tank? I'm having a similar problem after recently upgrading tanks and adding 50% new dry rock and sand. From what I understand, the rock and aragonite sand in our system has a very high capacity for binding PO4 from the water column. This means that until your rock is saturated at a level of 0.02 or 0.04 ppm (just as an example), the rock and sand will continue removing PO4 from the water until it reaches this level. From what I understand, the best way to combat this is to dose inorganic phosphate, as you can then "saturate" the rock to a given concentration fairly quickly. The key being going slowly, testing often, and making no drastic changes. Hope this helps.

 

[reefkeeperros]

Is it a new tank? I'm having a similar problem after recently upgrading tanks and adding 50% new dry rock and sand. From what I understand, the rock and aragonite sand in our system has a very high capacity for binding PO4 from the water column. This means that until your rock is saturated at a level of 0.02 or 0.04 ppm (just as an example), the rock and sand will continue removing PO4 from the water until it reaches this level. From what I understand, the best way to combat this is to dose inorganic phosphate, as you can then "saturate" the rock to a given concentration fairly quickly. The key being going slowly, testing often, and making no drastic changes. Hope this helps.

Setup in August last year, with dry rock and sand which is removed few months ago, just trying to find out something about Neophos seen few people using it but can't find much info about it.
Thanks

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

Setup in August last year, with dry rock and sand which is removed few months ago, just trying to find out something about Neophos seen few people using it but can't find much info about it.
Thanks

Gotcha, I dont know much about Neophos, hopefully somebody else can chime in. Even if the rock is not new, it could still be sucking up phosphate if levels were always kept low. This could definitely be a cause of tissue necrosis. Usually it manifests itself in bleaching first (in my experience at least). If you aren't able to raise phosphates through increased feeding, or if nitrates raise disproportionately higher when feeding more, you may need to dose inorganic phosphate (or possibly feed something like reef roids, heard these will skyrocket phosphate levels).

 

[reefkeeperros]

Gotcha, I dont know much about Neophos, hopefully somebody else can chime in. Even if the rock is not new, it could still be sucking up phosphate if levels were always kept low. This could definitely be a cause of tissue necrosis. Usually it manifests itself in bleaching first (in my experience at least). If you aren't able to raise phosphates through increased feeding, or if nitrates raise disproportionately higher when feeding more, you may need to dose inorganic phosphate...somebody should be able to help with that.

Well montis were bleaching out which now kind of stopped, stylo and acropora stn, started feeding more now some pellets or half cube of frozen 1-2 hours after lights come on and then a cube of mysis in the evening, feeding corals every 2 days

 

[Acrofiend]

Don’t waste your money on Neophos. Just buy potassium phosphate and use this calculator.

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

 

[Drew Halliday]

I was in nearly the same situation as you. I ordered some off of amazon. Prime was backed up and it hasn’t come yet. I ended up using market pantry brand baking powder from target. Yes baking powder weird I know. But is was a dollar, food grade and I could get it that day. It has sodium phosphate and calcium phosphate and none of the weird stuff normally in baking powder.

I fragged one of my sticks because the trunk started to look like camo where the tissue was sloughing off and half of the rest had burnt tips. The one that had RTN somehow healed the sloughed off spots and they are making a come back.

Here is the thread where I talked about it. Hope this helps.

DIY Phosphate Additive

I have a tank that has been set up for 10 weeks now and I added a bunch of SPS. I figured I would add corals first and let the tank go fallow for the ich quarantine period since I can't get fish anyways and I am going crazy. I can't get the fish I want because of the virus and now I am in a...

www.reef2reef.com