Phosphate dosing advice

[jbrooks515]

Hello all,

I am currently having problems keeping my phosphates detectable even with double dosing and am looking for some guidance on how to continue to keep from having further issues. I am running a Nuvo 10 gallon tank that is appx 10 months old. I have always struggled with low nutrients in my tank and have had to dose neo nitro and neo phos to keep my levels up even though I feed every day. Nitrates dont seem to be much of a problem anymore but I have always struggled with low phosphates. I made a mistake on my phosphates about 6 weeks ago and let them get too low which induced a dino outbreak on the sand bed which I am currently battling. I believe they are the amphidinium because they disappear at night and stay on the sand bed. I test my water every day with a hanna ulr phosphorous checker and confirm results occasionally with the hanna ulr phosphate checker. I am now having to double dose phosphates every day just to keep my phosphates from bottoming and I still cant hardly keep them off zero. I am currently dosing about 1.5 ml every morning and they just will not rise. This morning I read 2 ppb. I have also started dosing sponge excel at about 5 drops per day to induce diatoms to help battle the dinos. I am afraid that having to keep double dosing neo phos like I am that possibly the phosphates are binding somewhere that I dont know of and might cause further problems. Should I keep dosing like I am for now and ride it out until I can get the dinos under control? I also feed PE Mysis pellets to my 2 clowns everyday and have been broadcast feeding reef roids every couple days. Tank has about 15 corals and are mainly soft and lps. The only filter media I run in the tank is a small filter pad that gets changed every 3 to 4 days and ROX carbon in the back. No skimmer, no fuge, and there is also hardly any algae growing in the tank. Any advice you guys can give me to help me through this struggle would be greatly appreciated. I am just trying to make sure that I am following the right course to get my tank back on track. Thanks

 

[Porpoise Hork]

You can dose phosphate, or simply stop doing water changes and temporarily discontinue running carbon. All these usually will bring the phosphates up but be careful when dosing cause you don't want to over do it and stress the corals too much.

As for the Dinos, two things you can do is a 3-4 day total blackout while running a UV sterilizer. Get a 25- 50w UV lamp and run it continuously during the blackout. You can either connect it to the main pump or drop in a pump capable of around 100gph. This should kill off the majority of dinos in the tank, then dosing competing bacteria cultures (use several different types to increase the bio diversity) at the end of the blackout along with low level dosing of phosphates should prevent them from returning. You may have to do 2-3 blackouts to beat them but give the tank at least a week between blackouts to prevent starving the corals for light. Also running the UV on a timer so it runs opposite to the main tank lights for a few weeks can also help.

I had to do this a couple times when my nutrient levels bottomed out and led to not one but two dino blooms. Managed to beat them back using the blackout/UV/bacteria method.

 

[jbrooks515]

You can dose phosphate, or simply stop doing water changes and temporarily discontinue running carbon. All these usually will bring the phosphates up but be careful when dosing cause you don't want to over do it and stress the corals too much.

As for the Dinos, two things you can do is a 3-4 day total blackout while running a UV sterilizer. Get a 25- 50w UV lamp and run it continuously during the blackout. You can either connect it to the main pump or drop in a pump capable of around 100gph. This should kill off the majority of dinos in the tank, then dosing competing bacteria cultures (use several different types to increase the bio diversity) at the end of the blackout along with low level dosing of phosphates should prevent them from returning. You may have to do 2-3 blackouts to beat them but give the tank at least a week between blackouts to prevent starving the corals for light. Also running the UV on a timer so it runs opposite to the main tank lights for a few weeks can also help.

I had to do this a couple times when my nutrient levels bottomed out and led to not one but two dino blooms. Managed to beat them back using the blackout/UV/bacteria method.

Thanks. I will give all this a try. I just pulled my carbon to see if that will help with the nutrients as well. I dont have a big UV but I do have the IM UV for compartment 1 of my tank. Do you think I should continue dosing the neophos like I am to keep the levels above zero? I am worried that having to keep double dosing is going to cause more problems in the long run. It's tough because I know I'll never get rid of the dinos with the levels bottomed out either. It's tough to know what to do.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

I'd dose only if they are undetectable just to keep it off zero. For the UV something like this would be enough for a 10g as long as you have room for a pump like this. Set the pump in the overflow area of the tank and run a pair of hoses to and from the UV unit. For lamps like this one with three fittings, just plug the unused port on the lamp housing. Then plug the pump in and top off the tank with salt water as it fills the UV loop up. Let this run at nights on a timer or during the blackout. Then once the dinos are gone I'd keep it on night time operation for a few more weeks just to be sure. After that you can pull the UV rig and store it if you want.

 

[JoeinLA]

I was at 0 phosphates as well (presumably due to dry rock being a phosphate sponge in the beginning). I was dosing NeoPhos (1/2 cap to my 85+9 gallon tank), and got it to >0.05 after a week or so, IIRC. I added a quarter sheet of human-consumption Nori, and it really spiked my phosphates - up from ~0.07 to 0.13 in a day, and not sure if there was "leftovers" after I took it out, but the tank went up to 0.16. It seems like human-food nori is chock full of phosphates.

I also had dino's as a result of my 0 phosphates (apparently). I bought a Jebao 55 watt UV sterilizer and "ghetto plumbed" it between my return pump and the tank. I also used a toothbrush and went to town on the dino's at light's out each night (I read that they go into the water column at night so that's the best time to mechanically brush them off). After a few nights, the tank completely cleared up, so I think the UV sterilizer is amazing. It's my limited understanding, however, that UV only works against certain types of dino's (the ones that you can wave off the rock and that disappear at night and reappear during the day).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hello all,

I am currently having problems keeping my phosphates detectable even with double dosing and am looking for some guidance on how to continue to keep from having further issues. I am running a Nuvo 10 gallon tank that is appx 10 months old. I have always struggled with low nutrients in my tank and have had to dose neo nitro and neo phos to keep my levels up even though I feed every day. Nitrates dont seem to be much of a problem anymore but I have always struggled with low phosphates. I made a mistake on my phosphates about 6 weeks ago and let them get too low which induced a dino outbreak on the sand bed which I am currently battling. I believe they are the amphidinium because they disappear at night and stay on the sand bed. I test my water every day with a hanna ulr phosphorous checker and confirm results occasionally with the hanna ulr phosphate checker. I am now having to double dose phosphates every day just to keep my phosphates from bottoming and I still cant hardly keep them off zero. I am currently dosing about 1.5 ml every morning and they just will not rise. This morning I read 2 ppb. I have also started dosing sponge excel at about 5 drops per day to induce diatoms to help battle the dinos. I am afraid that having to keep double dosing neo phos like I am that possibly the phosphates are binding somewhere that I dont know of and might cause further problems. Should I keep dosing like I am for now and ride it out until I can get the dinos under control? I also feed PE Mysis pellets to my 2 clowns everyday and have been broadcast feeding reef roids every couple days. Tank has about 15 corals and are mainly soft and lps. The only filter media I run in the tank is a small filter pad that gets changed every 3 to 4 days and ROX carbon in the back. No skimmer, no fuge, and there is also hardly any algae growing in the tank. Any advice you guys can give me to help me through this struggle would be greatly appreciated. I am just trying to make sure that I am following the right course to get my tank back on track. Thanks

Dose more? Is it more complicated than that? How many ppm a day are you dosing? 0.03 to 0.05 ppm a day is a good dose until it comes on scale.

Neophos is a pretty weak supplement. When it runs out, I'd get food grade materials from amazon.

 

[jbrooks515]

Dose more? Is it more complicated than that? How many ppm a day are you dosing? 0.03 to 0.05 ppm a day is a good dose until it comes on scale.

Neophos is a pretty weak supplement. When it runs out, I'd get food grade materials

Dose more? Is it more complicated than that? How many ppm a day are you dosing? 0.03 to 0.05 ppm a day is a good dose until it comes on scale.

Neophos is a pretty weak supplement. When it runs out, I'd get food grade materials from As per the instructions on the bottle I should dose 0.2 ml to reach 0.02 ppm. I am now dosing 2.0 ml a day and everyday I am still near zero. I think maybe I am overthinking a simple problem and need to just continue to up my dosing until my levels are where they need to be.

Dose more? Is it more complicated than that? How many ppm a day are you dosing? 0.03 to 0.05 ppm a day is a good dose until it comes on scale.

Neophos is a pretty weak supplement. When it runs out, I'd get food grade materials from amazon.

Thanks for the input. As per the instructions on the bottle, I should dose 0.7 ml to hit 0.02 ppm. Currently I am dosing 2.5 ml per day and I'm still struggling to keep them from hitting zero. I am going to go ahead and look into the food grade products from amazon. The bottle I am currently using might be a dud.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Assuming you trust your kit result, there's no reason to not dose more and more until you get where you want (or run out).

Rock and sand can take up a very large portion of phosphate added.

 

[Oropher]

Dose more? Is it more complicated than that? How many ppm a day are you dosing? 0.03 to 0.05 ppm a day is a good dose until it comes on scale.

Neophos is a pretty weak supplement. When it runs out, I'd get food grade materials from amazon.

Randy, how to make a DIY phosphate dosing solution, low SRP as we don't want to overdose easily.

Which one to use :
a. Tricalcium phosphate (anti caking)
b. DSP - Disodium phospate (anti caking)
c. TSPP - tri sodium polyphosphate (food additive)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy, how to make a DIY phosphate dosing solution, low SRP as we don't want to overdose easily.

Which one to use :
a. Tricalcium phosphate (anti caking)
b. DSP - Disodium phospate (anti caking)
c. TSPP - tri sodium polyphosphate (food additive)

None of those.

needs to be food grade sodium phosphate (mono, di or tri sodium is oK). Not polyphosphate , and not calcium.

 

[Oropher]

None of those.

needs to be food grade sodium phosphate (mono, di or tri sodium is oK). Not polyphosphate , and not calcium.

I can only find TSP (Tri sodium phosphate) that is food grade.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I can only find TSP (Tri sodium phosphate) that is food grade.

That is one that I mentioned that is fine.

 

[Oropher]

Already order TSP, and want to test this theory as my nitrate is sitting at 20ppm but phospate is 0 ppm. I'm not using GFO or phosphate reactors, or dosing phosphate binder etc. I have chaeto in refugium.

With this TSP i'd like to raise the inorganic phosphate, hoping this would lower nitrate a bit.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It may allow nitrate to be consumed more by algae, corals, etc.

It may take quite of dosing of P to attain that as a lot of it may end up bound to rock and sand surfaces.

 

[Siberwulf]

Would this be a good source?

Loudwolf Trisodium Phosphate / 4 Ounce Bottle / 99.9% Pure Food Grade / Fine Crystals / USA https://a.co/d/apWLenq

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Would this be a good source?

Loudwolf Trisodium Phosphate / 4 Ounce Bottle / 99.9% Pure Food Grade / Fine Crystals / USA https://a.co/d/apWLenq

Yes, that's a fine choice.

 

[Colemansreef]

None of those.

needs to be food grade sodium phosphate (mono, di or tri sodium is oK). Not polyphosphate , and not calcium.

Do you have something written up somewhere with info on this? I finally got my phosphates down to where they didn’t go back up quickly and now they’re staying too low and I’ve been feeding a bunch but no luck so far with that goes up a little but goes back down quickly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I do not have an extensive write up, but dosing is pretty easy. Phosphate will, however, bind to surfaces as you dose it (or use foods) and it may take far more than calculated.

Use this calculator and the entry for phosphate from potassium phosphate. It is close enough. I'd aim for 0.05 to 0.1 ppm per day until it starts coming up, then adjust dosing as needed. The exact concentration you use for the dosing solution is not very important.

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator