When a new hobbyist asks how to cycle their tank, we should be encouraging them to test and if needed, dose for phosphates during their initial cycling process. This is especially true if they are using mined dry rock and sand.
After doing everything I could possibly think of as I started up my current tank to prevent dinos, I still got dinos. I still got them because, in large part, I ignored phosphate testing during the cycle and early stages of the tank because I thought that heavy feeding would be enough to keep my P04 up.
Once I really dug in for my fight against the dinos and realized it was not easy to keep p04 detectable in my 25 gallon, skimmer less tank, I started to see a common theme with others fighting dinos. We all had partially or all dry rock. I dosed phosphate daily per the instructions to keep my p04 at or close to .10 and it ended up taking a little over 500ml of neophos before my tank could keep a steady p04 reading without dosing.
I had ostreopsis which was quickly beaten back with UV and dosing phosphate and nitrate and it was only visible for a couple of weeks and with the exception of some cyano that followed the dinos, I did not have any algae that would have been consuming the phosphate so I believe my rock and possibly sand was absorbing or binding the phosphate.
In the past when we used dry rock, it was mostly dried live rock which was usually loaded with p04 to the point it was always suggested to cure the rock with some GFO running to get all the phosphate out before adding it to the display. Now days, the majority of the rock is either manufactured or mined in south Florida.
My rock was the mined Marco rock and I am interested in if what I encountered is common and if folks who shave started tanks with the other dry rock options today ran into dinos and if bottomed out nutrients were a factor.
After doing everything I could possibly think of as I started up my current tank to prevent dinos, I still got dinos. I still got them because, in large part, I ignored phosphate testing during the cycle and early stages of the tank because I thought that heavy feeding would be enough to keep my P04 up.
Once I really dug in for my fight against the dinos and realized it was not easy to keep p04 detectable in my 25 gallon, skimmer less tank, I started to see a common theme with others fighting dinos. We all had partially or all dry rock. I dosed phosphate daily per the instructions to keep my p04 at or close to .10 and it ended up taking a little over 500ml of neophos before my tank could keep a steady p04 reading without dosing.
I had ostreopsis which was quickly beaten back with UV and dosing phosphate and nitrate and it was only visible for a couple of weeks and with the exception of some cyano that followed the dinos, I did not have any algae that would have been consuming the phosphate so I believe my rock and possibly sand was absorbing or binding the phosphate.
In the past when we used dry rock, it was mostly dried live rock which was usually loaded with p04 to the point it was always suggested to cure the rock with some GFO running to get all the phosphate out before adding it to the display. Now days, the majority of the rock is either manufactured or mined in south Florida.
My rock was the mined Marco rock and I am interested in if what I encountered is common and if folks who shave started tanks with the other dry rock options today ran into dinos and if bottomed out nutrients were a factor.