Po4 0. Even when dosing. gHa

Dan_P · Mar 10, 2020

Michael Gray said:
I'm on week 4 of vibrant. No cyano yet. Just got a shipment of turbos and trochus. Today to beef up cuc. And of course scrubbing the rock with grout brush. I have a few patches of bryopsis. But I'm not to worried about that. One thing at a time.

Now I've read about the sand and rock absorbing my po4. What does that mean. Or do will it stop after awhile should I be worried about it absorbing it.

It's all marcoo rock and tropic edan reef flakes dry sand been running since August 3. Po4 has been a pain to keep steady since day one.

If the rocks and sand are composed of calcium carbonate, PO4 will stick to it, up to a point though. I suppose you could dose higher levels of PO4 to speed up the process but keep checking PO4 level to avoid overshooting the endpoint of adsorption.

rmurken · Mar 10, 2020

You might try posting in the SPS forum too, and include that pic. Good luck—those look like nice frags worth fighting to save!

Michael Gray · Mar 10, 2020

Dan_P said:
If the rocks and sand are composed of calcium carbonate, PO4 will stick to it, up to a point though. I suppose you could dose higher levels of PO4 to speed up the process but keep checking PO4 level to avoid overshooting the endpoint of adsorption.

How does that work. It sticks to it and then I'm able to hold po4 in water. But at what point does the rock release it and sky rocket a tank. If that's what the rock does

Michael Gray · Mar 11, 2020

Just a update and recap. This morning I think I dosed 1ml potassium phosphate because it tested 0 in morning. At 1pm ish it tested 5ppb. Then on this forum I retested after feeding a at 5:15 and it tested 13ppb. Now just tested at 10:38 it's down to 6ppb. By morning I expect it to be 0ppb but I'll post in morning

This is just showing an idea of how it's drastically dropping to 0. But let's see in am when I wake up

Hemmdog · Mar 11, 2020

How long have you been dosing this potassium phosphate? Do you test your potassium levels?

I think your sps issues are the tank being too young. If you had them three weeks already the frag plugs should be covered in coralline if the tank was mature enough for acros. I know that’s probably not the answer you want to hear; but coming from a guy who lost over$1000 in acros the first year of my 90gal to unknown reasons, the tank really needs time to mature before you try acros, coralline on new frag disk test is best imo(New frag disks + 2 weeks should = purple frag disks)

Vibrant didn’t work for me until the 8th week fwiw, then it all went away in a few days.

Michael Gray · Mar 11, 2020

Hemmdog said:
How long have you been dosing this potassium phosphate? Do you test your potassium levels?

I think your sps issues are the tank being too young. If you had them three weeks already the frag plugs should be covered in coralline if the tank was mature enough for acros. I know that’s probably not the answer you want to hear; but coming from a guy who lost over$1000 in acros the first year of my 90gal to unknown reasons, the tank really needs time to mature before you try acros, coralline on new frag disk test is best imo(New frag disks + 2 weeks should = purple frag disks)

Vibrant didn’t work for me until the 8th week fwiw, then it all went away in a few days.

Well I already said I won't buy more acros for awhile. Just more lps. To fill the sand. Zoas or such. The frags def don't turn purple. .I got Coraline on glass and rock. Well starting to see small pop ups on glass occasionally.

But that being said. I'm trying to save what I can of these sps acros

S.K. · Mar 11, 2020

I personally dose vibrant. dosing 3ml twice week since still fighting with green turf on bottom glass but almost gone. hair algae gone in 2 week of dosing. cleaning rock physically wont do any good. especially stupid hair algae. Get rid of the hair algae with vibrant first and see where your phosphate is. you probably wont have to dose phosphates after.

Michael Gray · Mar 11, 2020

Hemmdog said:
How long have you been dosing this potassium phosphate? Do you test your potassium levels?

I think your sps issues are the tank being too young. If you had them three weeks already the frag plugs should be covered in coralline if the tank was mature enough for acros. I know that’s probably not the answer you want to hear; but coming from a guy who lost over$1000 in acros the first year of my 90gal to unknown reasons, the tank really needs time to mature before you try acros, coralline on new frag disk test is best imo(New frag disks + 2 weeks should = purple frag disks)

Vibrant didn’t work for me until the 8th week fwiw, then it all went away in a few days.

S.K. said:
I personally dose vibrant. dosing 3ml twice week since still fighting with green turf on bottom glass but almost gone. hair algae gone in 2 week of dosing. cleaning rock physically wont do any good. especially stupid hair algae. Get rid of the hair algae with vibrant first and see where your phosphate is. you probably wont have to dose phosphates after.

I started the first 3 weeks with single weekly dosing. But don't see anything so Friday night I started week 4. And did 11ml dose and then today did my second 11ml dose. So just starting to do 2 doses a week.

@Hemmdog how many doses a week were you doing to see change at 8 weeks

Hemmdog · Mar 11, 2020

Michael Gray said:
I started the first 3 weeks with single weekly dosing. But don't see anything so Friday night I started week 4. And did 11ml dose and then today did my second 11ml dose. So just starting to do 2 doses a week.

@Hemmdog how many doses a week were you doing to see change at 8 weeks

Double dose twice a week. My issue was Ulva & bubble algae though.

Test your potassium to make sure this potassium phosphate you are adding isn’t elevating your potassium too much. That could also cause Acro issues if it is too high.

S.K. · Mar 11, 2020

Michael Gray said:
I started the first 3 weeks with single weekly dosing. But don't see anything so Friday night I started week 4. And did 11ml dose and then today did my second 11ml dose. So just starting to do 2 doses a week.

@Hemmdog how many doses a week were you doing to see change at 8 weeks

I also dose once a week to start and still had hair algae until week 2. when i started to dose two time a week it started to go away.
They will go no matter what if you keep the dose. Vibrant said it will kill easy algae first and go to hard turf algae. Now I feed heavy both my fish and sps. no need to worry about algae

Michael Gray · Mar 11, 2020

Hemmdog said:
Double dose twice a week. My issue was Ulva & bubble algae though.

Test your potassium to make sure this potassium phosphate you are adding isn’t elevating your potassium too much. That could also cause Acro issues if it is too high.

I'll test it tomorrow. I also have a few small bubble algae around like 2 small can frags. But what's killing me is the GHA then I will be able to see the couple small patches of bryopsis

Dan_P · Mar 11, 2020

Michael Gray said:
How does that work. It sticks to it and then I'm able to hold po4 in water. But at what point does the rock release it and sky rocket a tank. If that's what the rock does

It works something like this. When you saturate the rock with water at 0.05 ppm PO4, and then the water concentration falls below 0.05 ppm, the rock can lose some phosphate to the water, keeping the water concentration of PO4 from falling too far. The PO4 concentration does not suddenly increase to levels above 0.05 ppm because it is released from the rock.

Michael Gray · Mar 11, 2020

Dan_P said:
It works something like this. When you saturate the rock with water at 0.05 ppm PO4, and then the water concentration falls below 0.05 ppm, the rock can lose some phosphate to the water, keeping the water concentration of PO4 from falling too far. The PO4 concentration does not suddenly increase to levels above 0.05 ppm because it is released from the rock.

I totally understand that. Thanks for explaining that. If it is the rock and sand. It's crazy how long it takes to stop absorbing the po4. It's gotta be done by now

Michael Gray · Mar 11, 2020

Just an update to give idea of po4 moving around. Testing right now. Finished reading at 9ppb

So recap
Dosed 1ml in morning cause 0
1:30pm - 5ppb
5:30pm - 13ppb
10:38pm 5ppb
Today 10:55am 9ppb

It actually didn't go to 0 overnight!

becon776 · May 21, 2020

yeah this is maddening... I'm in same boat. how have you ended up?

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 22, 2020

becon776 said:
yeah this is maddening... I'm in same boat. how have you ended up?

Which boat is that? What is your concern?

becon776 · May 22, 2020

dosing brightwell but no po4

my tank has been set up (rsr450) for about 1.5 yrs. I've had some struggles but those are mostly irrelevant (except 2x dinosaurs outbreak). I have never registered PO4. ALK and Ca usage was virtually nil. so I decided to take the two part offline and start dosing brightwell. no3 and PO4...

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