Dosing Phosphate via ATO

drawman · Dec 1, 2019

Tried to search for anyone doing this and curious on your thoughts @Randy Holmes-Farley on adding Phosphate (Brightwell's NeoPhos, etc.) to the ATO water. I know there would be a concern with adding BOTH NO3 and PO4 with bacteria growth but I wonder if the same would happen adding just PO4. I've noticed a bacterial slime develop in my RO storage container over time so maybe this would be a bad idea? Thoughts? Certainly I could employ a doser just wanted to keep one less thing off the tank if possible.

dwest · Dec 1, 2019

drawman said:
Tried to search for anyone doing this and curious on your thoughts @Randy Holmes-Farley on adding Phosphate (Brightwell's NeoPhos, etc.) to the ATO water. I know there would be a concern with adding BOTH NO3 and PO4 with bacteria growth but I wonder if the same would happen adding just PO4. I've noticed a bacterial slime develop in my RO storage container over time so maybe this would be a bad idea? Thoughts? Certainly I could employ a doser just wanted to keep one less thing off the tank if possible.

Hi! I’m guessing you adding this because of the dinos. I can’t answer your question (sorry). I hooked my phosphate solution to a dosing pump right out of the bottle (the small brs dosers). What I learned was that I only had to dose for a month or so. After that, my system PO4 stayed at around 0.05 without any additions. You might be past this already, but wanted to throw this out. I guess what I am saying is that dosing may be short term.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 1, 2019

It is fine to add both phosphate and nitrate to the ato as long as the nitrate source is not calcium nitrate.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 1, 2019

I don’t think bacterial growth is a big concern if no organic is added and no lighting is provided.

drawman · Dec 1, 2019

dwest said:
Hi! I’m guessing you adding this because of the dinos. I can’t answer your question (sorry). I hooked my phosphate solution to a dosing pump right out of the bottle (the small brs dosers). What I learned was that I only had to dose for a month or so. After that, my system PO4 stayed at around 0.05 without any additions. You might be past this already, but wanted to throw this out. I guess what I am saying is that dosing may be short term.

You're absolutely right and I appreciate your help on the multiple threads. My tank is interesting in that I have a nasty case of cyano as well that is sucking up the PO4. I am over that big hump that you're talking about where it will go back to zero every day (and that only took about a week or two) but if I forget to dose a couple of days I think the cyano is still sucking it up. Thankfully I should get the UV hooked up this week and once dinos are knocked back I may hit the cyano with chemiclean. I'm in a very well sealed apartment building and it really makes me think if excess CO2 is adding to my problem with this tank...