Dosing Nitrates and Phosphates

[becon776]

despite dosing 14 ml of neophos and 30ml of neonitro in a reefer 450 for 3 days now i still have 0 po4 and no3 went from 3-5ppm. i am slowly upping the neophos now at 17ml/day. keeping no3 same since it wad rising but now im increasing PO4. daily test at end if photoperiod. also.... after not movung for months alk is dropping .1dkh/day since starting dosing.

 

[Lasse]

You are on track.

But be careful - when PO4 has hit zero for such a long time that it hurts the corals - your storage in sand and rock is empty. When you start dosing PO4 - beside the uptake from photosynthesis - the storage will be filled too. When its filled - you will see what´s means with the Ketchup effect If you notice that your corals start to grow again - they get their needed PO4 and the flux is enough even if you do not read any leftover in the water column.

The trick is to have a dose that give the corals what they need from direct dosing but also from the back and forth PO4 flux from the "storage room". I prefer to read a little left over - around 0.05 - 0.08 because - if so - I know that there is reserves that will be used if something going wrong with the dosing. But theoretical - it is possible to read 0 if you dose every day. To read 0 for a long time when you dose is a total different thing compared with reading 0 for a long time without dosing. It is not the leftover that's important - it is the daily flux. And I think that the concentration at the end of the photoperiod is the best tool.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Fer21]

Hello, I have a 15G nano tank that has been running since February of this year( 4months old) it has been sitting at zero nitrates and 0 phosphates for the last month and a half.

I’m trying to raise my No3 and PO4, I have started dosing 1ml of FaStar-M from Brightwell three days ago but no detectable Readings yet.

I’m trying to raise my levels to not run into Dino’s and to also have a bit of a dirty tank. I have soft, lps and SPS corals, which I’ve read benefit from having a not so clean tank.

1. Is dosing FaStar M any good? (I had it laying around that’s why I use it, it claims to have nutrients in it to raise No3 and PO4)

2.Should I increase dosage, feed more or both or use something different?

I use Salifert for both No3 and PO4, gonna get Hanna Checker this week.

Thank You.

 

[Lasse]

1. Is dosing FaStar M any good? (I had it laying around that’s why I use it, it claims to have nutrients in it to raise No3 and PO4)

2.Should I increase dosage, feed more or both or use something different?

1) personally - I prefer to individually dose NO3 and PO4 - but I´m sure that your compound will work too

2) See my above post. For phosphate - we have discovered that feeding reef roids will give a lot of phosphate too - its a good way if you have a lot of stony corals - both feed and rise the PO4. Feeding a lot of Nori will increase the N content too
3) My personal experiences - if I have started to try to resolve a problem in one way - the worst to do is to suddenly change to another approach before time have validate if it is right or not

Sincerely Lasse

 

[nano reef]

I'm dosing 2ppm of nitrates daily, that's barely enough to keep it at around 1-3 ppm nitrates. Phosphates are very low too, I have to add it too, even though I have lots of hair / cotton algae and cyano. This hobby is quite frustrating sometimes :/

I wish I would have never tried lowering it with nopox, because I didnt consider that after the water change it would lower even more and I my nitrates down to 2 and 0 phosphates. I think maybe using gfo for a while had my phosphates really low even b4 I quit that and just used nopox. But now that I have nutrients so low I cant get them back up!!! I have been feeding corals nightly and only feeding 2 times a week before and thats what up them and now nightly feeding wont up them! It makes no sense and I am getting cyano or maybe dino's (not quite sure what it is) I dosed neophos by Brightwell 2 x's to no avail! I guess I will order some nitrate stuff to dose and try that! I hope I am not stuck having to dose this stuff for the life of my tank!

 

[ricky1348]

You are on track.

But be careful - when PO4 has hit zero for such a long time that it hurts the corals - your storage in sand and rock is empty. When you start dosing PO4 - beside the uptake from photosynthesis - the storage will be filled too. When its filled - you will see what´s means with the Ketchup effect If you notice that your corals start to grow again - they get their needed PO4 and the flux is enough even if you do not read any leftover in the water column.

The trick is to have a dose that give the corals what they need from direct dosing but also from the back and forth PO4 flux from the "storage room". I prefer to read a little left over - around 0.05 - 0.08 because - if so - I know that there is reserves that will be used if something going wrong with the dosing. But theoretical - it is possible to read 0 if you dose every day. To read 0 for a long time when you dose is a total different thing compared with reading 0 for a long time without dosing. It is not the leftover that's important - it is the daily flux. And I think that the concentration at the end of the photoperiod is the best tool.

Sincerely Lasse

Great info here....