Dino's and P04

[IPT]

So I have a 120 bare bottom seeded with some old live rock from my old tank but 60% of it was old live rock I bleached and cleaned to build my aquascape. Since I started testing I've had 0 PO4 and NO3. As I started dosing Brightweels stuff, I got Nitrates up to 4, but P)4 stayed 0. Then I got what I think is Dinos (stringy brown stuff with little air bubbles that increase t/o the day).

I've since started with DIY PO4 using TSP (I think thats what I am using). I am doing 10ml a day and have seen no increase in P04. I read some thing that said to does HARD with the P04 (because at forst a tom of it will just get bound up in the rocks etc) and bring that up to something measurable before worrying about the NO3. Do you al agree? How much should I increase the dose by each day until I get something measurable? Once measurable how much do I back off to keep it stable?

 

[Fishy888]

You definitely want to get PO4 up. My understanding is that the rock and water will seek a balance between them, so if you want PO4 at, say, 0.05 ppm you’d need to dose twice that. The rock would eat 0.05 ppm, leaving 0.05 ppm in the water column.

This is how it should work in an ideal world but there are other things that can influence those numbers. Without bacteria to combat and outcompete the dinos however you’ll only end up feeding the dinos. Hopefully @Randy Holmes-Farley can chime in on this.

 

[IPT]

You definitely want to get PO4 up. My understanding is that the rock and water will seek a balance between them, so if you want PO4 at, say, 0.05 ppm you’d need to dose twice that. The rock would eat 0.05 ppm, leaving 0.05 ppm in the water column.

This is how it should work in an ideal world but there are other things that can influence those numbers. Without bacteria to combat and outcompete the dinos however you’ll only end up feeding the dinos. Hopefully @Randy Holmes-Farley can chime in on this.

Thanks. I did dose Microbacter 7 when I started the tank, and like I said, some of the rock came from a tank that was over 10 years old. So, unless all of the bacteria died off somehow, there should be a good base. In hindsight, I wish I never had removed my sandbed. Oh well.