TM phos-feed advice

[danlechem]

Hi.

My PO4 levels won't rise above 0.02 ppm, so I picked up some Tropic Marin Phos-Feed to help increase them.

I'm curious about how Phos-Feed works since it's described as being insoluble. Does it raise phosphate levels by preventing corals from taking up dissolved phosphates, allowing levels to gradually increase?

Additionally, has anyone had experience using Phos-Feed alongside carbon dosing? I'm planning to increase my Bacto-Balance dose and want to avoid bottoming out my PO4. Any insights or tips would be appreciated!"

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It’s just a particulate, like a coral food is a particulate.

I’m not a fan of secret ingredient products, and I’d just dose sodium phosphate, but the TM product may work fine.

 

[Pod_01]

Additionally, has anyone had experience using Phos-Feed alongside carbon dosing? I'm planning to increase my Bacto-Balance dose and want to avoid bottoming out my PO4. Any insights or tips would be appreciated!"

Maybe of interest, I set up a 10gal tank about month ago for my daughter and threw few corals in. Just to see what happens and experiment a bit.

First I did some aminos and carbon but that didn’t seem to work out well. Corals started to bleach out and I lost few:

About 2weeks back I started using Phos-feed, ammonia (as per Randy “Ammonia is our friend” thread) and still use carbon dosing and things have improved:

Both the montipora and psammocora are colouring up again. I figured the montipora was gone…

I am not measuring any value so not sure at what level P or N are at. I am trying the if corals are ok I am doing something right.
The only critter in the tank is one snail.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I'm mixing up 50 grams of phos feed in 1000ml of rodi water and adding 10ml a few hrs after the lights come on daily. Also dosing Plus-np and the system is still at .02 Po4 and getting very frustrated to say the least. The lps are nice and plump but slowly loosing their colors. The only benefit I'm getting is no algae growth, and I'm only cleaning the glass once a week. IMHO for my system anyway, it's a waste of money buying phos-feed at $60 bucks for a small container here in Canada.

Brightwell neophos I refuse to use anymore as all it did was spur algae growth and the more I'd use, the more the algae took over and yet it would raise Po4 but it just disappear very quickly. It's a mystery to me that when dosing to bring the po4 up with neophos, it just gets sucked up. Basically the more I added the faster it gets sucked up and did absolutely nothing besides being great at feeding algae. The TM crap does make for a clean aquarium I'll give them that much. BUT as for feeding the corals I'm really doubtful about that. Maybe I'll see better results in a few weeks, but using the supercharged mixture of phos feed just isn't doing anything positive for the coral. Plus-np is I believe.... just buying the Coral time and a slower death as I'm already at the maximum daily dose, but then again I can always go back to a small spot feedings of reefroids to do the job.

Pro Reef salt and particulate phosphate mixed in a small container, hmmm something fishy going on here.

 

[Aquariumaddictuk]

Have you tried prudently feeding reefroids?
My p04 regularly tests at 0 on hanna with after 5 months running zeovit but lps look great.
Fish & corals are heavily fed.
The heavy input/output balance with carbon dosing takes some experimentation

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Dosing diy phosphate is cheap and easy. Use food grade sodium phosphate.

 

[Pod_01]

I'm mixing up 50 grams of phos feed in 1000ml of rodi water and adding 10ml a few hrs after the lights come on daily. Also dosing Plus-np and the system is still at .02 Po4 and getting very frustrated to say the least. The lps are nice and plump but slowly loosing their colors. The only benefit I'm getting is no algae growth, and I'm only cleaning the glass once a week. IMHO for my system anyway, it's a waste of money buying phos-feed at $60 bucks for a small container here in Canada.

Brightwell neophos I refuse to use anymore as all it did was spur algae growth and the more I'd use, the more the algae took over and yet it would raise Po4 but it just disappear very quickly. It's a mystery to me that when dosing to bring the po4 up with neophos, it just gets sucked up. Basically the more I added the faster it gets sucked up and did absolutely nothing besides being great at feeding algae. The TM crap does make for a clean aquarium I'll give them that much. BUT as for feeding the corals I'm really doubtful about that. Maybe I'll see better results in a few weeks, but using the supercharged mixture of phos feed just isn't doing anything positive for the coral. Plus-np is I believe.... just buying the Coral time and a slower death as I'm already at the maximum daily dose, but then again I can always go back to a small spot feedings of reefroids to do the job.

Pro Reef salt and particulate phosphate mixed in a small container, hmmm something fishy going on here.

Can you post a picture of some of the corals and the loss of colour?

Some LPS corals from my main system that I use phos feed and bit of TM NP BB:

My PO4 is usually around 0.1 to 0.25… I do find that TM products take their time to work (months to see results). There is nothing wrong with using DYI recipes to bump up PO4 and later maintain it with Phos Feed.

From my observations colour loss can be caused by deficiency in N. How is your NO3? If low you may want to dose some ammonium.

Also if you don’t have enough fish, some type of coral food may be useful as well. I am not sure if corals can survive only on N and PO4. This part of coral keeping I find puzzling.

How are you supplementing your Alk , calcium? I observed that supplementing trace elements along with Alk and calcium can help with colour. For my tank TM A and K elements seem to provide most positive results. TM AFR also works well.

Lights plays role as well, and I struggle with this aspect. Too much conflicting information available.

Good luck,

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Can you post a picture of some of the corals and the loss of colour?

Some LPS corals from my main system that I use phos feed and bit of TM NP BB:

My PO4 is usually around 0.1 to 0.25… I do find that TM products take their time to work (months to see results). There is nothing wrong with using DYI recipes to bump up PO4 and later maintain it with Phos Feed.

From my observations colour loss can be caused by deficiency in N. How is your NO3? If low you may want to dose some ammonium.

Also if you don’t have enough fish, some type of coral food may be useful as well. I am not sure if corals can survive only on N and PO4. This part of coral keeping I find puzzling.

How are you supplementing your Alk , calcium? I observed that supplementing trace elements along with Alk and calcium can help with colour. For my tank TM A and K elements seem to provide most positive results. TM AFR also works well.

Lights plays role as well, and I struggle with this aspect. Too much conflicting information available.

Good luck,

Thanks, my yellow tip hammer is pailing out in color but then again it's a local trade that a guy fragged 10 days before I rec it. The frogspawn is a little dull but it's totally puffed out. Par range is in the 70-125 range and using a well known spectrum that's been known to work and has only a few days left before coming off acclimation after I've tweaked the channels up 10% and... Well par is spectrum so I'll leave it at that. Alkalinity and calcium is maintained with kalkwasser. Tank is only a WB 35.2 and systems water is 30 gallons. Nitrate is 0.5 since dosing TM plus NP. I strung 2 5gallon water changes yesterday over a 6hrs span, so a third of the water was changed to narrow down if it's lack of trace elements and / or removing something bad in the water. I've been steered to believe dosing kalk and a weekly WC is sufficient to maintain the trace elements? I was on AFR but with winter approaching here in central Canada pH is not where I want it this why the kalkwasser change.

I could take photos but the filter really exaggerates the color and without the filter the camera just over saturates in blue.

I'm going to do some water testing today and see what's going on after the WC and rear chambers being cleaned and vacuumed out.

 

[Pod_01]

I've been steered to believe dosing kalk and a weekly WC is sufficient to maintain the trace elements?

I am not sure if the math works, let’s say you deplete element and do 10% water change, after water change you will only replace 10%…

I prefer daily addition of traces, so there is constant supply vs. going from zero to some and zero again.

I was on AFR but with winter approaching here in central Canada pH is not where I want it this why the kalkwasser change.

I am from Ontario so low pH is a problem. Although I had best results when I ignored pH and used AFR …

Large water changes can lead to fluctuations and may not be best for corals. Corals are at equilibrium with the water around them and large fluctuations can stress them out. It takes time for them to establish new equilibrium etc…

Good luck,

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I am not sure if the math works, let’s say you deplete element and do 10% water change, after water change you will only replace 10%…

I prefer daily addition of traces, so there is constant supply vs. going from zero to some and zero again.


I am from Ontario so low pH is a problem. Although I had best results when I ignored pH and used AFR …

Large water changes can lead to fluctuations and may not be best for corals. Corals are at equilibrium with the water around them and large fluctuations can stress them out. It takes time for them to establish new equilibrium etc…

Good luck,

Alkalinity was matched to the tank water so no issues there. Corals looking great today. Just been feeding a frozen cube for the past few days and not feeding the small pellets.

But back to using Plus-np and reason for kalk. Plus-np will stall the pH rise so really depending on the kalk to help it get over 8. If I go back to AFR then it'll be a handful of days till the Apex screams at me with a value of 7.80 and not comfortable waking up to an alarm.

Id love to know how to dose AFR and kalk the same day. I believe @Hans-Werner said to find the kalk dose was to see how much AFR it takes to go from a dkh of 7 to a dkh of 8. Then that be the AFR dose but adding kalk to the mix will also push the ALK higher is what I found so didn't bother. I'm not letting my tank drop to 7 dkh especially when I'm mixing up TM pro reef salt that mixes up to 8 already. And yes I did mix the bag up to get rid of any stratification.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

So I thought about what you said about going from going from some to none fast. Well AFR is back on line and just set the dose -2.5ml a day from where I was at. I'm gathering the ALK is going to jump then slowly come down to match the AFR dose.

Hopefully the addition of AFR and Plus-np won't cause a huge issue lowering the pH. I guess I'll see in a few days what happens :/