Undetectable Phosphates???

[Super Fly]

I have a 75 with around 90 gallons total. I started the seachem flourish . 1 ml & tested again some hours later & went from there. The amount I dose now will be different than yours for sure. Worked out pretty good .

I just started dosing Seachem Flourish Phosphorus and was following their direction and stumbled upon this thread. @cracker I have 87 ttl volume and was wondering what dosing formula u used to calculate how much to dose Seachem Phosphorus. Thx

Ignore any Seachem directions since it is not intended for a reef tank. http://www.seachem.com/flourish-phosporus.php

"2.5 mL (half a cap) for each 80 L (20 US gallons)...raises phosphorus by 0.05 mg/L (0.15 mg/L phosphate)"

I'd start at 0.01 ppm phosphate added each day. So that is 2.5 mL per 300 gallons of tank volume.

@Randy Holmes-Farley based on your suggestion, that would come out to 0.0083 ml per gallon to does Seachem Flourish Phosphorus, is this correct? Thx

 

[cracker]

Hello, Super fly . Iv'e been dosing 3 to 5 mls a day & testing "often "when I reach my mark I stop for a dy & test again. Noe I'm trying less & less to find a daily dose that will maintain. I have been either over shooting or it drops back to zero. I's start with 3 mls & see what happens. Please check in if you find a sweet spot Thanks .

 

[KJoFan]

Following. I have the same kinds of issues as the OP. Tank is about the same age, at 10 months or so. NO3 and PO4 have always tested chronically low (0-.5 for NO3 and 0-7ppb for PO4). I lost all sps a little while back, though probably not fully related to the nutrient issue.

But, I am seeing some hair algae and overall dingy tank/glass etc, yet nutrients are always reflecting low in the test kits. I run a fuge that was lit for 12 hours and is a Triton sized fuge, though i'm not running the Triton method.

I have not really taken any action due to not know what action to take, similar to OP originally. Rather than dosing NO3 and PO4 I am reducing my fuge lighting time by 4 hours, for a max of 8 hours lit and see how that goes. I can only assume my chaeto is just sucking up the nutrients faster than they are being produced. I feed pellets 2x daily on autofeed and frozen daily, sometimes every 2-3 days.

Anyway, we'll see if reduced fuge time makes any difference or not. If not, I will have to look toward some dosing of nutrients I guess. In over 10 yrs of reefing, I have never battled low nutrients in a system like I have this one, so this is new territory for me. I hope adjusting fuge time will do the trick, as I feel it would be a more balanced/natural solution to the problem.

 

[Super Fly]

Hello, Super fly . Iv'e been dosing 3 to 5 mls a day & testing "often "when I reach my mark I stop for a dy & test again. Noe I'm trying less & less to find a daily dose that will maintain. I have been either over shooting or it drops back to zero. I's start with 3 mls & see what happens. Please check in if you find a sweet spot Thanks .

Thx for reply Cracker! ok, I'll try daily dosing and keep you posted. Seachem's online calc had said to dose 2.2ml/week but I believe as per this thread Seachem's calc is not relevant for reef aquarium.

 

[Super Fly]

Following. I have the same kinds of issues as the OP. Tank is about the same age, at 10 months or so. NO3 and PO4 have always tested chronically low (0-.5 for NO3 and 0-7ppb for PO4). I lost all sps a little while back, though probably not fully related to the nutrient issue.

But, I am seeing some hair algae and overall dingy tank/glass etc, yet nutrients are always reflecting low in the test kits. I run a fuge that was lit for 12 hours and is a Triton sized fuge, though i'm not running the Triton method.

I have not really taken any action due to not know what action to take, similar to OP originally. Rather than dosing NO3 and PO4 I am reducing my fuge lighting time by 4 hours, for a max of 8 hours lit and see how that goes. I can only assume my chaeto is just sucking up the nutrients faster than they are being produced. I feed pellets 2x daily on autofeed and frozen daily, sometimes every 2-3 days.

Anyway, we'll see if reduced fuge time makes any difference or not. If not, I will have to look toward some dosing of nutrients I guess. In over 10 yrs of reefing, I have never battled low nutrients in a system like I have this one, so this is new territory for me. I hope adjusting fuge time will do the trick, as I feel it would be a more balanced/natural solution to the problem.

Have u tried running skimmer less instead of 24/7? Some folks have had success raising nutrient by feeding nori and rotifers as well.

 

[KJoFan]

Have u tried running skimmer less instead of 24/7? Some folks have had success raising nutrient by feeding nori and rotifers as well.

I haven’t run the skimmer less but I do try to run it pretty dry at least.

 

[cracker]

I run my skimmer 24/7 . No3 & po4 drop to undetectable so I dose a little. & I still have rampant Hair Algae . Drives me nuts ! LOL
Anyway I'm just trying differing things.Try this for a couple months, then try that. this last round I'm trying to keep p04 close to 0.03 & No3 detectable & a little more . I replaced my sump with a larger refugium/chaeto with a much better light in an effort to get the algae to grow down in the sump ,not the display. We shall see.
So what's up with your tank? Please let me know how it's working out for you .Thank's

 

[cracker]

Please join in ,KJoFan ,get this thread going again !

 

[KJoFan]

I run my skimmer 24/7 . No3 & po4 drop to undetectable so I dose a little. & I still have rampant Hair Algae . Drives me nuts ! LOL
Anyway I'm just trying differing things.Try this for a couple months, then try that. this last round I'm trying to keep p04 close to 0.03 & No3 detectable & a little more . I replaced my sump with a larger refugium/chaeto with a much better light in an effort to get the algae to grow down in the sump ,not the display. We shall see.
So what's up with your tank? Please let me know how it's working out for you .Thank's

This is exactly the frustrating thing about this issue. You are increasing your fuge trying to outcompete the hair algae in the display. I am reducing the power of the fuge (maybe) in order to increase detectable nutrients. And I think it's safe to say neither of us know if our changes will make a positive impact.

I have to say one reason I avoided taking any action at all was fear of an increase in algae growth in the display but I won't know unless I try.

 

[cracker]

AGREED! LOL
Two opposite methods. We need to check in & compare results .

 

[Super Fly]

I run my skimmer 24/7 . No3 & po4 drop to undetectable so I dose a little. & I still have rampant Hair Algae . Drives me nuts ! LOL
Anyway I'm just trying differing things.Try this for a couple months, then try that. this last round I'm trying to keep p04 close to 0.03 & No3 detectable & a little more . I replaced my sump with a larger refugium/chaeto with a much better light in an effort to get the algae to grow down in the sump ,not the display. We shall see.
So what's up with your tank? Please let me know how it's working out for you .Thank's

Some have had success implementing algae scrubber/reactor in sump to out compete the tank algae, but believe it took them time and had to reduce the tank algae first until algae scrubber became more established.

In my situation it all started while battling cyano, which resulted in tank becoming too clean when I finally beat cyano. Don't have much SPS, mostly softies and LPS (dosed vinegar while running GFO, then the dosing pump Calcium tube got clogged so ALK shot up to 13 which bleached my birdsnest & almost killed pocillopora). Stopped running vinegar & GFO few months ago and fixed the Calcium tube clogging issue, haven't done water change in 7 weeks and nutrient still very low. I barely have to scrape any algae from DT glass and I believe low PO4 is affecting coral growth. Caulerpa and bubble algae grow well in sump, but hardly see algae in DT (which probably is also being kept clean by my foxface and tomini tang.) I feed frozen in morning, pellets in pm, bi weekly nori & rotifer (calen eze) in addition to feeding caulerpa from the sump to DT (which foxface, tang and flame angel devour). Even after all this, NO3 steadily measures 5 while PO4 is always 0. Will keep you posted how dosing PO4 goes.

 

[cracker]

Ok so this 75 is got a bunch of ha . I pull a lot out . I have at least 50 assorted snails, they are all munching away but not enough to keep this ha from going crazy.. 2 urchins & 2 turbo' snails . Bubble is all but gone now. ' Mosly LPs & a few sps all being over run with ha. On detectable nutrients but all this ha. I try to keep a little No3, Po4 but it quickly drops '
So I'm going to continue with the Chaeto, dosing just a little to kick start the chaeto & see what happens.

 

[Super Fly]

Ok so this 75 is got a bunch of ha . I pull a lot out . I have at least 50 assorted snails, they are all munching away but not enough to keep this ha from going crazy.. 2 urchins & 2 turbo' snails . Bubble is all but gone now. ' Mosly LPs & a few sps all being over run with ha. On detectable nutrients but all this ha. I try to keep a little No3, Po4 but it quickly drops '
So I'm going to continue with the Chaeto, dosing just a little to kick start the chaeto & see what happens.

have you tried PhosphateRX to get rid of GHA as per Melev's video here? After treatment and removal of GHA, he buys fresh snails from lfs (theory being that current snails have become lazy due to over abundance of food in tank vs new hungry snails)

 

[cracker]

i will check it out .Thanks for the info.

 

[cracker]

Thanks SF for the melev's clip. i'm doing all this except the Phosphate RX . May give it a go .

 

[Super Fly]

GL. Think it's also important to rinse hand in water after EACH pinch "to prevent filaments from floating around in your tank and reattaching elsewhere, just spreading your problem further" as per Melev's article. http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/getting-rid-of-green-hair-algae

 

[Super Fly]

It's been about a week dosing 2ml/day Seachem Flourish Phosphorus while reducing skimmer to 12 hrs/day and still 0 PO4...Going to try increasing to 3ml/day and stop skimming to see what happens.

 

[mta_morrow]

My phosphates have been at 0 for the last 4 weeks.

Nitrates are starting to creep up now.

I just ordered a bottle of Seachem Flourish to start raising my phosphates.

I think 0 phosphates is my limiter for lowering my nitrates right now.

I use a Hanna ULR for testing phosphates and Red Sea Pro for nitrates.

 

[mta_morrow]

Thanks SF for the melev's clip. i'm doing all this except the Phosphate RX . May give it a go .

Vibrant. 3 weeks of dosing and GHA is gone and no sign of coming back.

 

[Tig_Tech]

Low PO4 for my tank hurts my delicate sps really bad. I find that anywhere from .20-.40ppm of PO4 keeps my sticks growing at a consistent level. If I notice my Alk and Cal numbers creeping up, I suspect my PO4 has dropped below .08 and my sps growth slows down drastically. I’m usually right once I test it. Then I go ahead and dose Flourish, my Alk consumption starts to rise, and my sticks picked up where they left off. Took me awhile to figure it all out, but now I have it dialed in. KEEP YOUR TANKS DIRTY!!!!