Maintaining PO4 with dosing or Reefeoids?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Tested again. Phosphates back down to 0.01. Upped dosing to 5ml every 12 hours now… seems so high

It's expected to take high doses to bring phosphate up since much of it may be binding to calcium carbonate surfaces such as rock and sand. :)

Bare rock experiments have shown it can take many ppm of phosphate to get to 0.1 ppm phosphate remaining in the water.

 

[josh57]

Wow, that does seem high, still using Nyos? Did anything recently change in the tank or new corals that may be taking more of the phosphate out?

I did add stuff but not till I tested yesterday. But the corals have started growing a lot more and are probably taking up more.

 

[josh57]

It's expected to take high doses to bring phosphate up since much of it may be binding to calcium carbonate surfaces such as rock and sand. :)

Bare rock experiments have shown it can take many ppm of phosphate to get to 0.1 ppm phosphate remaining in the water.

I was starting to get happy when I got it up to .05. Then it fell off a cliff again :/

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was starting to get happy when I got it up to .05. Then it fell off a cliff again :/

Yep, up the dose or just slowly keep at it. :)

 

[hoffmeyerz]

Before my sodium phosphate came in I was upping phos with Reefroids. Was working ok but then spikes high. I backed off but the damaged was done and I've been trying to knock back green cyano that started up, real bummer!

 

[josh57]

Before my sodium phosphate came in I was upping phos with Reefroids. Was working ok but then spikes high. I backed off but the damaged was done and I've been trying to knock back green cyano that started up, real bummer!

Yeah even dosing what I felt like was a smaller amount of it, the spikes and where it fell down at. Were way too drastic for me.

 

[rishma]

It’s been a little over 2 weeks since I dialed I in a consistent dose of reef roids and phosphate has stayed steady, except when I missed 2 days (and phosphate dropped).

I have made up another month’s worth of frozen food cubes that include my dose of reef roids, so I’ll just keep going.

I agree using trisodium phosphate is far more practical, predictable, and controllable. That is what I would recommend for anyone trying to increase their phosphates.