Phosphates are zeroing out every day, a few specific questions

[Marc2952]

I would simply dose like .5ppm and see where it’s at a day later

I started dosing phosphates to keep it above 0 to combat dinos and it worked, problem is now algae is started to take hold and its dropping the phosphates to 0 again which is making the dinos come back again

 

[Grigs]

go lights out for 48 hrs and do the Dr Tim's dino recipe using Refresh and Waste Away. Worked for me after a really nasty dino outbreak. Had to repeat 3 times but it finally took hold

 

[AJsReef]

Any determination on the best way to auto-dose? Is a single large dose preferable or multiple small doses? My tank is sucking .08+ppm daily which I’ve spread over 24 hours. Nitrate appears to be completely stable at 5ppm

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Any determination on the best way to auto-dose? Is a single large dose preferable or multiple small doses? My tank is sucking .08+ppm daily which I’ve spread over 24 hours. Nitrate appears to be completely stable at 5ppm

I'd be careful autodosing unless you monitor for an extended period. As the rock and sand get more and more on it, the dissolved phosphate levels will steadily rise.

 

[AJsReef]

I'd be careful autodosing unless you monitor for an extended period. As the rock and sand get more and more on it, the dissolved phosphate levels will steadily rise.

With this whole QT I’ve been checking daily, ha. Would like to get it sorted before I have to go back to a regular work schedule. Pretty amazing how quickly my tank is consuming currently.

Would the alternative be to dose heavily once and then check in a few days? I definitely see better Acro color since I’ve started dosing

 

[ScottB]

With this whole QT I’ve been checking daily, ha. Would like to get it sorted before I have to go back to a regular work schedule. Pretty amazing how quickly my tank is consuming currently.

Would the alternative be to dose heavily once and then check in a few days? I definitely see better Acro color since I’ve started dosing

During my dino bouts I used a doser for PO4 and NO3. Helpful when travelling as I could dose & adjust remotely. Testing on the other hand was bit trickier. Once my dinos were abating and my rock was fully soaked with PO4, it climbed pretty quick.

 

[BeejReef]

I'm confident my rocks are fully saturated (within reason), but still find I have to dose P to the tune of about .03 worth a day or I will zero out and have dinos roar back. Like ^^ says, the trick is knowing if it's being consumed by life in the tank, or filling up the reservoir in your rocks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm confident my rocks are fully saturated (within reason), but still find I have to dose P to the tune of about .03 worth a day or I will zero out and have dinos roar back. Like ^^ says, the trick is knowing if it's being consumed by life in the tank, or filling up the reservoir in your rocks.

Just realize that far more phosphate will bind to rock at 0.03 ppm than does at 0.01 ppm. It's not a fixed amount that binds, but an escalating amount depending on the amount of free phosphate in the water.

 

[trmiv]

I'm confident my rocks are fully saturated (within reason), but still find I have to dose P to the tune of about .03 worth a day or I will zero out and have dinos roar back. Like ^^ says, the trick is knowing if it's being consumed by life in the tank, or filling up the reservoir in your rocks.

Same thing with my tank. I had dinos pop up, so I started dosing phosphate, and maintained it around .06-.09 for awhile and they died back. Once they died back I decided to stop with the dosing and see if the tank would find a happy level through my feeding. Over a week the levels dropped down to .02, and sure enough I started to get a dusting of dinos on the sand. So I dosed them back up to .06 and I've been maintaining that for three days and they are gone again.

 

[html]

Why your phosphates lowering if you dosing it back? I do not dose but it raising if I feed alot or skimmer does not work

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I would let the Dino’s run their course and let them go away on their own. If you keep interfering they will just keep coming back. Every time I have had them I have just done my best to keep the corals clean and alive and eventually they go away and don’t come back. But there are lots of types of Dino’s, best bet is to identify which kind you have to figure out what method might work to kill them off if that’s what is needed. I have yet to have a type that won’t die out on their own.

 

[KimG]

Hi #living_tribunal
Any update in the results?
I just went trough the same. About a month after starting to dose phosphate (At rates of up to 0.2mg/l daily) I finally have measurable phosphate. I also went trough the phase of battling dinos.
I think it as become a pretty common problem this days.

 

[KimG]

There was a comment made earlier I’m also curious about saying if this is normal for dry rock tanks why don’t others report this more or maybe I just haven’t come across that conversation.

Hi Mykawl
If you check the sections regarding Dinos and the threads regarding inability to keep sps's, its pretty common to see this problems mentioned. While I don't think is the full story, I think its in part related.
The common solution given is time, but I suspect the time is just for all this parameters to stable out.
Hopefully, if enough of this topics and discussions show up, and if people gives complete descriptions live living_tribunal gave us, we might be able to start discerning patterns.

 

[KimG]

For people finding or following this thread, this may be worth giving a look:

Phosphate Absorption Rates in Aragonite

I was chatting with @mcarroll the other day about phosphate binding to aragonite. I have seen many instances where phosphate bound live rock and sand requires massive amounts of media and water changes to remove all of the phosphate. Two instances: 1). Local purchased 120lbs of Pukani live...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Crustaceon]

Why your phosphates lowering if you dosing it back? I do not dose but it raising if I feed alot or skimmer does not work

In most cases where we see dinos, it’s due to low nutrients. At those low levels, bacteria seems to have issues propagating and dinos start to out compete the bacteria for resources. When enough phosphate (or even nitrate in some cases) is added back into the system, bacteria immediately consumes as much nitrate/phosphate as it physically can, which drops the dosed levels down so quickly again. It also starves dinos during that period which causes them to die back. The key here is to keep adding nitrates and phosphates until a sustainable and dominant bacterial population is in the system and maintain those levels through normal feeding and not overusing products like vibrant or nopox. It was mentioned that dinos popped back up after hair algae took root. Again, yet another example of low nutrients causing dinos as the hair algae is extremely efficient at reducing nitrates and phosphates, which favors dinos. In this case, the hair algae is the bottleneck and physically removing it from the tank would be akin to a reefer putting down the bottle of vibrant and letting their nutrients rise in order to address the issue.

 

[Ross Petersen]

Not to hijack but I'm having the same considerations and experience around phosphate...

If I may... I have a 10 month old 132 gallon tank. Started with dry marko rock. All rocks are covered in coralline algae and have a green tinge to them. Moderate livestock capacity with some euphyllia, CUC, and tangs. I've been dosing phosphates mildly from 2 months on to maintain them around 0.03 to 0.10 ppm. They always trickle down. Nitrates are always around 10-20 ppm (never dose nitrate).

Recently, for whatever reason, phosphates plunged to 0 and a larger phosphate dose using Seachem Phosphorus did nothing using the Hanna checker.

Should I continue dosing, striving for around a 0.05-0.10 ppm phosphate stability range? I'm concerned adding a bunch of one chemical artificially over time will have negative consequences down the road...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Not to hijack but I'm having the same considerations and experience around phosphate...

If I may... I have a 10 month old 132 gallon tank. Started with dry marko rock. All rocks are covered in coralline algae and have a green tinge to them. Moderate livestock capacity with some euphyllia, CUC, and tangs. I've been dosing phosphates mildly from 2 months on to maintain them around 0.03 to 0.10 ppm. They always trickle down. Nitrates are always around 10-20 ppm (never dose nitrate).

Recently, for whatever reason, phosphates plunged to 0 and a larger phosphate dose using Seachem Phosphorus did nothing using the Hanna checker.

Should I continue dosing, striving for around a 0.05-0.10 ppm phosphate stability range? I'm concerned adding a bunch of one chemical artificially over time will have negative consequences down the road...

Yes, there's no downside to dosing phosphate if levels are low (except cost and time), as long as your kit is accurate and the material you are using is reasonably pure.

 

[Ross Petersen]

Thanks Randy. I’m using a Hanna ultra low phosphorous kit. I’ll keep dosing and hope this is a rock absorption of phosphorous event that won’t lead to persistent out of balance algal growth down the road.

Using T5 and Kessil LEDs (mostly blue) and the photoperiod is low at ~6 hours so hopefully that will help in the short term.

Yes, there's no downside to dosing phosphate if levels are low (except cost and time), as long as your kit is accurate and the material you are using is reasonably pure.

 

[html]

Not to hijack but I'm having the same considerations and experience around phosphate...

If I may... I have a 10 month old 132 gallon tank. Started with dry marko rock. All rocks are covered in coralline algae and have a green tinge to them. Moderate livestock capacity with some euphyllia, CUC, and tangs. I've been dosing phosphates mildly from 2 months on to maintain them around 0.03 to 0.10 ppm. They always trickle down. Nitrates are always around 10-20 ppm (never dose nitrate).

Recently, for whatever reason, phosphates plunged to 0 and a larger phosphate dose using Seachem Phosphorus did nothing using the Hanna checker.

Should I continue dosing, striving for around a 0.05-0.10 ppm phosphate stability range? I'm concerned adding a bunch of one chemical artificially over time will have negative consequences down the road...

Your biological process is not working since you do not dose nitrates and dose phosphates. Biologically your nitrates transform into phosphates. You may need to add some kind of bacteria

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Your biological process is not working since you do not dose nitrates and dose phosphates. Biologically your nitrates transform into phosphates. You may need to add some kind of bacteria

OK, let's back up.

There's no process known to man that can convert nitrate into phosphate.

It is also not correct to proclaim the biological processes are not working just because he sees an imbalance. There are many unbalanced processes in reef tanks that can add or remove one of these and not the other.