Zero phosphate, should I stop the phyto?

[Bombschell]

Some of you know I was in a big battle with cyano recently and did a 5 day blackout and peroxide. My nitrates and phosphate we're both low but detectable right where I wanted them. My hammer coral has been looking puny though and there is some brown stuff growing on its skeleton causing recession. Everything else seems happy enough. I tested this evening and had 0 nitrates, and 0 phosphate. I had backed down on the feeding to help deal with algae, but not that much. The diatoms are finally burning out. I dose approximately 3 ml of algae barn phyto in the evening and have been for a couple of months and this is the first time I've seen the nutrients bottom out and think that maybe one of the things aggravating the hammer coral.

 

[Spare time]

I would just feed more and keep the phyto up as there are benefits of consistent phyto dosing (higher zooplankton levels)

 

[Bombschell]

Guess I will back down on the phytoplankton maybe 3 time a week instead of every day. I was going to start using chemipure bit seems like I don't really need to ATM.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Guess I will back down on the phytoplankton maybe 3 time a week instead of every day. I was going to start using chemipure bit seems like I don't really need to ATM.

Does phyto reduce phophates ? I never heard this before. If you have low or 0 phophates you should most likely feed more or lower refugium light time or something along the lines of this.

 

[Bombschell]

As far as I know the phyto can use up nutrients in the water column. That is why they help beat back algae. They also will feed your copepods which also use up or out right consume algae and nutrients in the water column.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

As far as I know the phyto can use up nutrients in the water column. That is why they help beat back algae. They also will feed your copepods which also use up or out right consume algae and nutrients in the water column.

What other means of nutrient export do you use?

 

[Bombschell]

What other means of nutrient export do you use?

What other means of nutrient export do you use?

Stock filtration on a Fluval Evo plus live rock and sand, and a bag full of bio tubes for some extra bacterial surface area in chamber 1. I used a skimmer for a bit to beat back the diatoms but, had a huge dino bloom when I stripped the water of nutrients. Now they are gone again.

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

Does phyto reduce phophates ? I never heard this before. If you have low or 0 phophates you should most likely feed more or lower refugium light time or something along the lines of this.

As far as I know the phyto can use up nutrients in the water column. That is why they help beat back algae. They also will feed your copepods which also use up or out right consume algae and nutrients in the water column.

Phytoplankton will for the most part not reduce NO3 or PO4. It may slightly reduce NO3 before PO4 but will likely be insignificant, especially at the dose you are using.

At larger doses it may increase PO4 because of the fertilizer used to grow it. Phytoplankton does not "beat back algae", it is an algae. Its a desirable algae and it does use nutrients to a degree but not to the degree of a nutrient export.

It more feeds your microbiome than actually using NO3 and PO4. Feeding your microbiome creates a healthy system and in turn reducing the space for undesirables.

I daily dose 150ml of phyto on a 50g total water volume. Which is 3ml per gallon. I see little to no reduction in NO3 and a slight increase in PO4 because of the fertilizer used to grow it.

Id suggest not stopping your use of phytoplankton. If you want to increase PO4 and NO3 there are supplements available that are rather easy to dose and quite effective. you can by pre bottled or save a bunch of money and mix your own which is also very easy. Ive done both but i like saving money

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Phytoplankton will for the most part not reduce NO3 or PO4. It may slightly reduce NO3 before PO4 but will likely be insignificant, especially at the dose you are using.

At larger doses it may increase PO4 because of the fertilizer used to grow it. Phytoplankton does not "beat back algae", it is an algae. Its a desirable algae and it does use nutrients to a degree but not to the degree of a nutrient export.

It more feeds your microbiome than actually using NO3 and PO4. Feeding your microbiome creates a healthy system and in turn reducing the space for undesirables.

I daily dose 150ml of phyto on a 50g total water volume. Which is 3ml per gallon. I see little to no reduction in NO3 and a slight increase in PO4 because of the fertilizer used to grow it.

Id suggest not stopping your use of phytoplankton. If you want to increase PO4 and NO3 there are supplements available that are rather easy to dose and quite effective. you can by pre bottled or save a bunch of money and mix your own which is also very easy. Ive done both but i like saving money

Yea thanks I didn’t think so but wanted others to chime in cause Ive been wrong before lol

 

[ZoWhat]

Phytoplankton will for the most part not reduce NO3 or PO4. It may slightly reduce NO3 before PO4 but will likely be insignificant, especially at the dose you are using.

At larger doses it may increase PO4 because of the fertilizer used to grow it. Phytoplankton does not "beat back algae", it is an algae. Its a desirable algae and it does use nutrients to a degree but not to the degree of a nutrient export.

It more feeds your microbiome than actually using NO3 and PO4. Feeding your microbiome creates a healthy system and in turn reducing the space for undesirables.

I daily dose 150ml of phyto on a 50g total water volume. Which is 3ml per gallon. I see little to no reduction in NO3 and a slight increase in PO4 because of the fertilizer used to grow it.

Id suggest not stopping your use of phytoplankton. If you want to increase PO4 and NO3 there are supplements available that are rather easy to dose and quite effective. you can by pre bottled or save a bunch of money and mix your own which is also very easy. Ive done both but i like saving money

I dose large amount of Tet, Nanno and Iso I home brew separately. I dose at 11pm at night.... like 4oz of each into a 220g water volume.

I dose 5ml vodka + 10ml BactoBalance at 10am the next morning

#s pretty stable at:
No3 = 10-15
Po4 = 0.2-0.3

My best testing equipment are MY EYES seeing that my coral animals are happy.

Do I care that my po4 is sometimes well over 0.3? Nope as long as my corals look happy

I only test no3 and po4 to make sure I'm not moving toward any danger zone a few days down the road

 

[Bombschell]

Well I guess I will ramp up the feeding a bit again then. Thanks for the input.

 

[jcdeng]

what is your dosage on peroxide to kill the cyano? was it a success?

I heard reef roids are great source of PO4, might want to use that occasionally if you want some PO4 in your tank.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

I have a solution of 4 tablespoons sodium nitrate, 1 teaspoon of trisodium phosphate and 1,500 ML of RODI water for which I does about 25 ML per day, spread throughout the day. It keeps a minimal level of fertilizer in the tank that is easily consumed by my macro and my corals. Never have too much, never have too little. Tank is happy. If I ever want to give my macro a boost, I just do a one time dose of 5-10ML and you an see the positive response.

 

[Bombschell]

what is your dosage on peroxide to kill the cyano? was it a success?

I heard reef roids are great source of PO4, might want to use that occasionally if you want some PO4 in your tank.

I don't dose the peroxide every day. I turned the lights off for about 5 days and dosed 1.5ml at night and then 10ml of bacteria in the morning. It did work pretty well no more cyano on the sand and strings everywhere.

I use reef roids 1-2 times a week target feeding, and mysis 1-2 times a week. The reef roids have been good for me my acan and micromussa started making new buds within a couple of weeks and the hammer coral was huge and happy till the cyano and treatment. Now for whatever reason all of my nutrients have disappeared.

 

[jda]

Unless you are testing with a Hannah Ultra Low, then I would not chase phosphates with any other tool - they just are not accurate enough. If you have a Hannah, then as long as you have 1, or more, PPB, then you have enough phosphate.

As for nitrate, residual test levels are meaningless to coral, but if you want them higher to growth limit dinos, diatoms or something, then that is different. For the corals, feed more and let them get their nitrogen from ammonia/ammonium since they are actually use that.

Remember, available building blocks > residual numbers on a test kit.

 

[Bombschell]

I am using the Hannah UL phos checker

 

[Borat]

Some of you know I was in a big battle with cyano recently and did a 5 day blackout and peroxide. My nitrates and phosphate we're both low but detectable right where I wanted them. My hammer coral has been looking puny though and there is some brown stuff growing on its skeleton causing recession. Everything else seems happy enough. I tested this evening and had 0 nitrates, and 0 phosphate. I had backed down on the feeding to help deal with algae, but not that much. The diatoms are finally burning out. I dose approximately 3 ml of algae barn phyto in the evening and have been for a couple of months and this is the first time I've seen the nutrients bottom out and think that maybe one of the things aggravating the hammer coral.

It's ok if you serve vodka in millilitres in the US&A (say 11 millilitres a serving)... As for phyto - I dose 200ml a day in my 100gal tank, the quantities you mention are so tiny that I can tell they are unlikely to be the reason for your phosphates/nitrates bottoming out..

 

[jda]

Feed your fish more.

The P is binding to the rock and sand. Research the relationship and understand it and you will be way ahead of most out there. In small amounts, the aragonite acts like a buffer (good) and when you get too much it is a seemingly never ending reservoir (bad).

Once you build up a buffer in the aragonite, what you put in needs to come out. Most people don't know this and just fill up their rocks and sand until, all of a sudden, then they have too much and it is climbing too quickly. I would not rush to get more P into your tank.

 

[Bombschell]

It's ok if you serve vodka in millilitres in the US&A (say 11 millilitres a serving)... As for phyto - I dose 200ml a day in my 100gal tank, the quantities you mention are so tiny that I can tell they are unlikely to be the reason for your phosphates/nitrates bottoming out..

Keep in mind I am dosing about 3-5ml in about 13 gallons of water which is about half of the dosing per 20 gal from algae barns directions.

 

[Bombschell]

Feed your fish more.

The P is binding to the rock and sand. Research the relationship and understand it and you will be way ahead of most out there. In small amounts, the aragonite acts like a buffer (good) and when you get too much it is a seemingly never ending reservoir (bad).

Once you build up a buffer in the aragonite, what you put in needs to come out. Most people don't know this and just fill up their rocks and sand until, all of a sudden, then they have too much and it is climbing too quickly. I would not rush to get more P into your tank.

Alright. Yeah i figured i would ramp my feeding back up. I had my levels right where i wanted, but made some changes during the black out one of which was less feeding.