Phosphates at 0.0ppm today!

[BriDroid]

I've been carbon dosing with vodka in my 10 gallon at 0.5ml per day. I've slowly watched my NO3 stabilize around 6-7ppm but my PO4 have been slowly dropping the last week or so; 0.024ppm on the 9th, 0.006ppm on the 12th and 0.0ppm today. I have ordered some Brightwell NeoPhos, it should be here tomorrow. I'm testing this with a Hanna nitrate HR tester and a Phosphorus ULR tester. I did two tests back to back today, and they were both 0ppb. That tester has the conversion chart to convert to phosphates in ppm.

Everything seems happy and healthy today, no dinos or cyano and good polyp extension.

My question is how much should I be dosing on a 10 gallon tank, around 8 gallons total volume with the rocks/sand. The label that I read on line just says to does to raise it up to 0.03ppm, but doesn't give a Xml per gallon, etc.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

They used to say this:

"1 ml NEOPHOS will increase the phosphate concentration in 1 US-gallon (~3.8 L) by ~1.2 ppm; 1 drop from plastic bulb pipette (enclosed within bottle) will increase the concentration in the same volume of water by ~0.06 ppm."

Now they say this:

There has been more than one strength of NEOPHOS that has been sold, so please refer to the number of gallons treated on the bottle.


Does the label say anything along these lines?

 

[BriDroid]

I ended up putting 1ml of NeoPhos in yesterday. When I tested today I was at 0.094. I’m going to keep an eye on it and see if that 1ml is the magic number for me. I also added 0.5ml of NeoNitro and my nitrogen stayed at 6.0, so that does seems good.

 

[TommyP]

Would reducing the vodka dose allow po4 to come up so you don’t have to add phos

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Would reducing the vodka dose allow po4 to come up so you don’t have to add phos

Vodka doesn't generally have a very large impact on phosphate, and thus I'd also use other methods, but if nitrate is acceptable, it might be a reasonable part of the plan. L