Low po4 high no3

Dream. Explore. Discover.
Jump to Last
Herpdederp

Herpdederp

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 25, 2021
Messages
42
Reaction score
6
Location
Hong Kong
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hey guys, I've been having some NO3 PO4 chemistry balancing issues for the last two months. I recently started to change water 10% weekly and noticed the PO4 is bottoming out without NO3 coming down at all, increasing slowly actually. Over the last month I've been trying different methods mainly taking equipment offline one by one to see if it made a difference. Today I have removed skimmer, pellet reactor, micro algae and removed 60% of the bio rings. I started to dose PO4 supplement two weeks into starting to water change again, but no luck in balancing out the chemistry. After managing to up the PO4 to balanced levels with NO3 I started to dose carbon but with not much difference. I also noticed if I turned on the skimmer after PO4 is back up from supplementation it drops noticeably faster than if the skimmer was off. Hoping someone could point me in the right direction to improve my situation. Seems to be having the same problem in both my big and small tank. Thanks in advance! FYI the left side is 38 gallon and right side is 138 gallon.
1661176727530.png
 
Deltec
Simple answer is that the tank will stop taking up nitrate when it is phosphate limited. As such, your tank is using whatever phosphates it can and your nitrates are going up because they are no longer being held in check by the items that consume nitrates and phosphates. Without knowing more..the 'simple' answer could be to feed more or to dose phosphates (I dose trisodium phosphate.)
 
Ecoscape Reef Rock
BroccoliFarmer said:
Simple answer is that the tank will stop taking up nitrate when it is phosphate limited. As such, your tank is using whatever phosphates it can and your nitrates are going up because they are no longer being held in check by the items that consume nitrates and phosphates. Without knowing more..the 'simple' answer could be to feed more or to dose phosphates (I dose trisodium phosphate.)
Click to expand...
I've been using NeoPhos for around two months now, pretty much bought out the supply of the lfs haha. Where would I be able to find trisodium phosphate? I'm located in Hong Kong so ordering from Amazon US comes with a hefty price tag. I looked around local hardware and paint shops but with no luck. Any idea what kind of store I would be able to find some trisodium phosphate?
 
Herpdederp said:
I've been using NeoPhos for around two months now, pretty much bought out the supply of the lfs haha. Where would I be able to find trisodium phosphate? I'm located in Hong Kong so ordering from Amazon US comes with a hefty price tag. I looked around local hardware and paint shops but with no luck. Any idea what kind of store I would be able to find some trisodium phosphate?
Click to expand...
One i use

one I heard of people using

sorry..i cant find a local hook up in hong kong..not my stomping grounds.
 
Don't know if you can find it there but Fleets enema is a mixture of trisodium phosphate and disodium phosphate. Mix it with some Di water and you have a nice cheap mixture that is easy to dose.
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
BroccoliFarmer said:
PLENTY.

For my tank which is approximately 95 gallons, 7 grams in 1,500 MLs of RODI....when I dose 1 ml, it raises my ph by 0.01.
Click to expand...
I've spent a good $75 bucks on neophos without much improvement on sustaining desired levels. What are things usually in a reef tank that would consume so much PO4? If I feed reef roids the PO4 stays the same and NO3 increases by around 1 - 2ppm. But sine the imbalance I haven't used roids since, only dried food every other day 1/4 of the amount I use to feed and also some frozen or feeding frenzy once or twice a week. But recently I stopped on my big 138G since the NO3 spikes like crazy when I feed that.
 
Deltec
How old is your tank? It could be that the phosphate is bonding with your substrate and live rock and will eventually level out. Other than that, micro algeas, macro algaes and corals will all consume nitrates and phosphates..not to mention various bacteria.
 
BroccoliFarmer said:
How old is your tank? It could be that the phosphate is bonding with your substrate and live rock and will eventually level out. Other than that, micro algeas, macro algaes and corals will all consume nitrates and phosphates..not to mention various bacteria.
Click to expand...
138G tank is 8 months 60% of scape is live rock. 38G tank is 1year and 3 months, with this scape I bleached the rocks to rebuild it into a more stable base since the small tank is tall. Both tanks have sand and medium sized crushed coral as substrate. Both tanks have sand sifting CUC.
 
Herpdederp said:
138G tank is 8 months 60% of scape is live rock. 38G tank is 1year and 3 months, with this scape I bleached the rocks to rebuild it into a more stable base since the small tank is tall. Both tanks have sand and medium sized crushed coral as substrate. Both tanks have sand sifting CUC.
Click to expand...
Ok. You shouldnt be having issues with phosphate bonding then. I would say that you must have some inhabitants that are consuming your phosphates. Just gotta pump some more in.
 
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
Do you have a lot of corraline algae? My 20g is covered in coralline (rocks, glass, overflow, pumps, everything) and it consumes phosphate like crazy, have neophos on a permanent doser.
 
Pkunk35 said:
Do you have a lot of corraline algae? My 20g is covered in coralline (rocks, glass, overflow, pumps, everything) and it consumes phosphate like crazy, have neophos on a permanent doser.
Click to expand...
No, never had any algae issues. I only had red slime issues when I didn't do water changes only with RODI top off, I had to clean the fuge and sump every 2-3 weeks. Since water changes the issue has gone away. I suspect it has something to do with dosing nitraphos regularly as that's the only thing I used a lot less from when I did no water changes.
 
BroccoliFarmer said:
Ok. You shouldnt be having issues with phosphate bonding then. I would say that you must have some inhabitants that are consuming your phosphates. Just gotta pump some more in.
Click to expand...
Some good news, I managed to find a different LFS with po4 + supplement and they have stock. But I ordered trisodium phosphate from Amazon, guess I will be making my own but good to know there's a local source.
 
View ReefStash's latest YouTube video!
I've ran into many issues in the past since I started the reef dive 2 years ago. At a point my small tank was draining Mg like crazy, had to dose 100ppm every 10 or so days, I even picked up a 3 liter bottle and went though half of it @@ no idea what the cause of the spikes were. My corals aren't consuming as much, before the WCs I notice that my Kh would drop from 8.5 to 7.5 over 4-5 days. with WCs it keeps slowly increasing Mg up to 1400 and Ca up to 450 @@. I've yet to reach the golden standard of stable chemistry and have maximum growth speed.

I remember I had a similar problem with po4 and no3 imbalnce and I was able to rebalance by using Bactiv8, the Microbactor 7 I've hard is good for sustaining the balance. Last time I dosed three times Bactive 8 fixed the water chemistry over a couple of days. Will report my findings on this thread.

I managed to get po4 in range tonight, dosed Bactive8, checking with Hana in the morning, wish me luck!

Can't say enough how much I thank you guys for helping! Cheers!
 
Nutramar Foods
Herpdederp said:
I've ran into many issues in the past since I started the reef dive 2 years ago. At a point my small tank was draining Mg like crazy, had to dose 100ppm every 10 or so days, I even picked up a 3 liter bottle and went though half of it @@ no idea what the cause of the spikes were. My corals aren't consuming as much, before the WCs I notice that my Kh would drop from 8.5 to 7.5 over 4-5 days. with WCs it keeps slowly increasing Mg up to 1400 and Ca up to 450 @@. I've yet to reach the golden standard of stable chemistry and have maximum growth speed.

I remember I had a similar problem with po4 and no3 imbalnce and I was able to rebalance by using Bactiv8, the Microbactor 7 I've hard is good for sustaining the balance. Last time I dosed three times Bactive 8 fixed the water chemistry over a couple of days. Will report my findings on this thread.

I managed to get po4 in range tonight, dosed Bactive8, checking with Hana in the morning, wish me luck!

Can't say enough how much I thank you guys for helping! Cheers!
Click to expand...
im excited for the results! I have been dosing flourish for a few days now. still undetectable. dosed 2mls yesterday with a reading of 1ppb 0.003ppm today. Gonna dose another 2mls today and test tmrw. hopefully, there is traces of po4. Dam its scary adding po4 into your system :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:
 
Jaymang said:
im excited for the results! I have been dosing flourish for a few days now. still undetectable. dosed 2mls yesterday with a reading of 1ppb 0.003ppm today. Gonna dose another 2mls today and test tmrw. hopefully, there is traces of po4. Dam its scary adding po4 into your system :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:
Click to expand...
Hey Jay, I reckon I managed to find what I was missing. Since around 3-4 months ago I swapped bacteria from Bactive8 NPX to Nitribiotic. I am guessing Nitribiotic dosing by itself is not enough to sustain healthy bacteria for the po4 to bond and stay to the correct ratio to no3. If you run out of ideas try using a different brand of bacteria. I'll report back in a week or so with my readings, but as of today the no3 in both my tanks dropped by 2ppm and po4 stayed above 0.08. Can't wait to get back to regular feeding! Oh I also found that when I didn't have the correct bacteria dosing any kind of carbon, NP balance product just sucked up all the po4. I currently use NP bacto balance from Tropic Marine.
 

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%

  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
See comments…

New Posts

Deltec
Deltec
Nutramar Foods
Dinkins Aquatic Gardens
Chewy.com
World Wide Corals
TCK Corals
Tidal Gardens
Top Shelf Aquatics
New Posts
Back
Top