TDO ChromaBoost increasing phosphates / feeding advice

BryanM · Apr 29, 2025

So I just figured out that my increased feeding schedule with this food... at least SEEMS to be what is likely keeping my phosphates elevated.

Full disclosure, when I did a tank swap almost 5 months ago I bottomed out nutrients. I dosed NeoNitro and NeoPhos, and it never felt right that all of the sudden I'm .9 on a hanna tester, so who knows what it is.

We also increased our number of fish, and I increased feeding this food, which is the primary food I feed.

Now I search and it seems this food can indeed raise phosphate levels.

So i'm looking foods / feeding advice. We're in this for the long game, this was easy, but I'm sure there are better things that are reasonably attainable out there.

Thanks in advance.

Timfish · Apr 29, 2025

All foods are going to be adding PO4. I would use water changes and phosphate remover of some type to lower PO4. Here's a video you may find interesting on molar ratios of nutrients:

edsbeaker · Apr 29, 2025

BryanM said:
So I just figured out that my increased feeding schedule with this food... at least SEEMS to be what is likely keeping my phosphates elevated.

Full disclosure, when I did a tank swap almost 5 months ago I bottomed out nutrients. I dosed NeoNitro and NeoPhos, and it never felt right that all of the sudden I'm .9 on a hanna tester, so who knows what it is.

We also increased our number of fish, and I increased feeding this food, which is the primary food I feed.

Now I search and it seems this food can indeed raise phosphate levels.

So i'm looking foods / feeding advice. We're in this for the long game, this was easy, but I'm sure there are better things that are reasonably attainable out there.

Thanks in advance.

I had the same issue when I switched from frozen to the ease of using TDO in my Plank feeder. I don’t think this is isolated to the TDO pellets, but most if not all dry food. I went from .03 to .1 quickly. I suppose you could counteract it with adding a GFO reactor and refugium, if you don’t already use those. I personally, just went back to frozen for now.