Phosphate Dosing Counterintuitive With Microbacter Clean?

[george9]

Hi all,
I'm working on stabilizing my phosphate levels after a bloom of amphidium dinos sprouted up on my sandbed from too few feedings and too many water changes. I've been avoiding feeding coral foods to prevent the dinos from blooming even more. My plan of attack is to dose neophos coupled with microbacter clean + new sources of biodiversity. I have added small pieces of FL live rock around the sand bed, and will begin adding more pods and dosing phyto this week. I also plan on adding a bit of FL Keys live sand as well.

After 3 weeks of dosing neophos, my phosphate still plummets to 0 after 24 hours. I'm up to dosing about .1-.12 ppm a day and it's still being used up. Now I know rocks and sand can absorb a good amount of it and this could be the cause, but would dosing microbacter clean simultaneously with neophos cause me to be in an endless 0 phosphate loop? There is no significant algae on the rocks other than a film of algae on the back wall, so I don't think it's being used by algae. I have a very small amount of chaeto as well, but I am not running my fuge light at all currently and it has not grown. If microbacter clean has the ability to limit phosphate, I am considering ditching this dosing altogether to favor a balanced phosphate concentration in the tank.

My nitrates are rock solid around 5ppm, but my inability to get phosphates stable I think is hindering my progress with getting these dinos knocked back, and irritating a couple of my corals.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[sixty_reefer]

Phosphates is always more trickier to stabilise due to some being absorbed by the sand bed and rocks, in this situations I normally prefer to dose double of the recommended dose, it does less harm to have more phosphates than having less phosphates available in a system

 

[george9]

Phosphates is always more trickier to stabilise due to some being absorbed by the sand bed and rocks, in this situations I normally prefer to dose double of the recommended dose, it does less harm to have more phosphates than having less phosphates available in a system

That makes sense...hopefully I don't reach an equilibrium and end up overdosing one day. I think careful daily monitoring is key. Unfortunate the Hanna phosphate reagent is so expensive lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just dose more. I do not know if mb7 is a net source or sink for phosphate over time, but overwhelming it should not be difficult even if it is a sink.

 

[george9]

Just dose more. I do not know if mb7 is a net source or sink for phosphate over time, but overwhelming it should not be difficult even if it is a sink.

Do you think overdosing phosphate to compensate for the absorption be a bad thing for corals? I dose .+\- .1ppm about twice a day currently. I’ve calculated my tank’s phosphate absorption to be about .1PPM every 12 hours, but what if I just dosed .3PPM of neophos at 1 time? I’m guessing corals would briefly be mad but I don’t think the concentration would stay elevated long enough to cause issues…unless I hit the saturation point unknowingly.

Also what sort of long term effect does dosing phosphate and it slowly depleting have on coral health? I can’t imagine me dosing phosphate and causing +\- .1ppm swings every single day can be good for the health of any coral.

It’s been about a month of dosing and I’m still waiting for my rocks/sand to stop absorbing all of the phosphate I add! Would be nice to not have to worry about dosing a couple times a day haha

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You could space out the dosing if you were concerned about it, but I’ve not seen evidence of issues dosing 0.1 ppm per day all at once.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hi all,
I'm working on stabilizing my phosphate levels after a bloom of amphidium dinos sprouted up on my sandbed from too few feedings and too many water changes. I've been avoiding feeding coral foods to prevent the dinos from blooming even more. My plan of attack is to dose neophos coupled with microbacter clean + new sources of biodiversity. I have added small pieces of FL live rock around the sand bed, and will begin adding more pods and dosing phyto this week. I also plan on adding a bit of FL Keys live sand as well.

After 3 weeks of dosing neophos, my phosphate still plummets to 0 after 24 hours. I'm up to dosing about .1-.12 ppm a day and it's still being used up. Now I know rocks and sand can absorb a good amount of it and this could be the cause, but would dosing microbacter clean simultaneously with neophos cause me to be in an endless 0 phosphate loop? There is no significant algae on the rocks other than a film of algae on the back wall, so I don't think it's being used by algae. I have a very small amount of chaeto as well, but I am not running my fuge light at all currently and it has not grown. If microbacter clean has the ability to limit phosphate, I am considering ditching this dosing altogether to favor a balanced phosphate concentration in the tank.

My nitrates are rock solid around 5ppm, but my inability to get phosphates stable I think is hindering my progress with getting these dinos knocked back, and irritating a couple of my corals.

Thanks for any advice!

I have dosed MB7 and have not seen any evidence that it causes any consumption of phosphate.

I'm pretty certain that your phosphate is simply being absorbed by rock and substrate.

Just keep dosing until you see a measurable level after 24 hours and then stop to see how steady it sits over a week.

 

[george9]

I have dosed MB7 and have not seen any evidence that it causes any consumption of phosphate.

I'm pretty certain that your phosphate is simply being absorbed by rock and substrate.

Just keep dosing until you see a measurable level after 24 hours and then stop to see how steady it sits over a week.

I’ve been testing 1-2 times daily and the problem is the po4 barely lasts 12 hours so I tend to dose twice a day and then test again in the morning. I wish po4 would stay stable enough to test weekly but I just need to keep dosing.

I did stop dosing the microbacter and haven’t seen a difference in my po4 reduction which makes sense based on what you guys are saying.

I’ve used chemi pure elite and purigen in this tank forever as well. Long term, I definitely need to reduce water changes and increase feeding to keep the dinos away. Question is whether or not I need to reduce my chemical filtration to keep nutrients in the tank.
At this point, the chemi pure is 3 months old and probably not removing much phosphate if any. I’m thinking I might remove it entirely just in case it is sucking up phosphate though I think it’s 99% rocks/sand. The other half of me is wanting to just replace it like usual to avoid making any significant changes while my phosphate levels are a bit of a roller coaster…but that may be counterintuitive.