Bacto-Balance not maintaining levels - phosphates increasing :(

[majeric]

Hello,

I'm after some advice please - i started on my carbon dosing journey a few months ago - the aim was to move away from GFO.
About 100g tank, feeding twice a day (pellets in the morning) and 3 cubes of frozen in the evening.

When i started out, my parameters were:
Phosphates around 0.1-0.15ppm
Nitrates were around 50ppm.

(GFO Off) Started initially with Elimi-NP, and by day 22, i was 1ml of Elimi-NP. My phosphates were still around the 0.14 mark but my nitrates had dropped to 10-15ppm.
I decided to run some GFO for a few days and that brought my phosphates down to 0.046 - 0.09.

Switched away from Elimi-NP as my phosphates were below 0.1 and move to Bacto-balance.
Started dosing 3ml per day of BB (split around 4 doses).
Fast forward and my dose increased to 3.2ml per day.

My phosphates had crept up to 0.09 - 0.14. And has been continuing to creep up (0.25 in the latest icp).

Now, i've brought my GFO back online, and i'm dosing 3.4ml of bacto balance into the tank (again, across 4 doses).
What i'm not sure of is - am i dosing too much BB which is why my phosphates have been increasing or am i dosing too little to maintain the sub 0.1 level.

Carbon dosing is all very new to me - my tank is pretty established (4 years old). But since i started carbon dosing, a lot of my sps have started to brown out.
Just to add, i stopped dosing amino's a few days ago as i believe adding bacto balance and aminos causes excess nitrogen in the water column...which could be a cause for the browning.

If anyone is able to shed some light on this, this would be very helpful! many thanks!

 

[majeric]

@Hans-Werner, @Lou Ekus,

Is this something you're able to advise on please.
Many thanks!

 

[Reef.]

You need to be using Elimi every time your lvl of po4 is above 0.1 as Bacto contains nutrients as its designed to keep your lvls stable as it contains nutrients so your lvls never drop too low.

 

[Troylee]

I’m not sure if tropic Marin has any bottled bacteria but I’ve found bacto balance along side of zeobak or mb7 is a great combination and work together perfectly to keep both levels down.. and it doesn’t take much of any of the three products. Carbon dosing is great but feeding bacteria to the carbon source works even better!

 

[Reef.]

I’m not sure if tropic Marin has any bottled bacteria but I’ve found bacto balance along side of zeobak or mb7 is a great combination and work together perfectly to keep both levels down.. and it doesn’t take much of any of the three products. Carbon dosing is great but feeding bacteria to the carbon source works even better!

I tried fritz but not sure it made a difference, my lvls came down without the bacteria from a bottle, bacteria reproduce fast, the amount of bacteria you would add from a cap full of bottled bacteria would be negligible I would think, most people can’t afford to add a full bottle of fritz a day so would a cup full make much difference?

 

[Troylee]

I tried fritz but not sure it made a difference, my lvls came down without the bacteria from a bottle, bacteria reproduce fast, the amount of bacteria you would add from a cap full of bottled bacteria would be negligible I would think, most people can’t afford to add a full bottle of fritz a day so would a cup full make much difference?

I dose a cap full twice a week that’s it and it works.

 

[majeric]

You need to be using Elimi every time your lvl of po4 is above 0.1 as Bacto contains nutrients as its designed to keep your lvls stable as it contains nutrients so your lvls never drop too low.

But my point is that bacto balance isn’t maintaining phosphates….they are increasing. And I don’t know if it’s too little or too much bb

 

[Troylee]

But my point is that bacto balance isn’t maintaining phosphates….they are increasing. And I don’t know if it’s too little or too much bb

Are you happy where your nitrates are? If so then use something to bring po4 back down.. if you’re not then up your dose of bacto balance.

 

[Reef.]

But my point is that bacto balance isn’t maintaining phosphates….they are increasing. And I don’t know if it’s too little or too much bb

But you posted you were adding bacto when your po4 was over 0.1 that was my point, it contains nutrients so if you want to lower your po4 don’t add a product that has nutrients.

You can over dose, the instructions say to pull back if you see clouding of the water, make sure you have your skimmer going and good surface movement.

 

[majeric]

Are you happy where your nitrates are? If so then use something to bring po4 back down.. if you’re not then up your dose of bacto balance.

Yep, happy with my nitrate level but I wanted to move away from gfo….and hoped bacto balance would solve the balance.

 

[majeric]

But you posted you were adding bacto when your po4 was over 0.1 that was my point, it contains nutrients so if you want to lower your po4 don’t add a product that has nutrients.

You can over dose, the instructions say to pull back if you see clouding of the water, make sure you have your skimmer going and good surface movement.

Ah ok….but if I turn off bacto balance and leave just the gfo, my nitrates will probably jump up…..

 

[Reef.]

Ah ok….but if I turn off bacto balance and leave just the gfo, my nitrates will probably jump up…..

No, use Elimi, its the same as bacto but without the nutrients.

 

[majeric]

No, use Elimi, its the same as bacto but without the nutrients.

Ok cool.

My problem still stands though.

Once I’ve got my phosphates back down, move to bacto balance, but it doesn’t maintain the levels.
Either I’m dosing too much (water isn’t cloudy but my phosphates increase) or too little so it’s not managing my phosphates.

Does that make sense?

Or is it that I have to keep switching between elimi and bacto for ever more.

 

[Reef.]

Ok cool.

My problem still stands though.

Once I’ve got my phosphates back down, move to bacto balance, but it doesn’t maintain the levels.
Either I’m dosing too much (water isn’t cloudy but my phosphates increase) or too little so it’s not managing my phosphates.

Does that make sense?

Or is it that I have to keep switching between elimi and bacto for ever more.

Well they are essentially the same product so is switching such a hassle?

I do understand what you are asking, but every method of po4 removal will be a balancing act, gfo is for ever a moving target, same for phosguard, lanthanum choride etc all need adjusting.

Bacto was keeping my po4 very stable but like a fool I went and added some reef roids, one dose of roids and my po4 shot to 0.2, so have some Elimi on the way.

Bacto has a limit to the amount you can dose or it will starve your tank of oxygen, I use double the recommended dose for a new tank, I use the amount for a mature tank of the same size as my few month old tank, as said as long as you see no clouding and have good oxygen exchange you may be able to up the dose but it will only go so far, just as all the other methods, add too much po4 and you will have to try and alter things up, its not going to keep po4 stable no matter what.

If po4 goes too high you may need to supplement with other methods, I don’t think you are at that stage yet, water changes, elimi and time should fix your issue, if you are not adding coral food.

Edit, think of it as being on a diet, eat 2000 a day and you will be stable, add an extra 500 a day you will put on weight, get your weight down by going on a diet you can then go back to your 2000 calories…same for elimi and bacto, get your po4 where you want it by using elimi, then dose bacto to keep it stable, if you add too much po4 it will go up, add elimi to being it back down, then go back to bacto.

 

[Hans-Werner]

@Hans-Werner, @Lou Ekus,

Is this something you're able to advise on please.
Many thanks!

Yes, NP-Bacto-Balance contains some nutrients. Here on our homepage you find our carbon dosing scale which tells when to use which of our carbon dosing products. If with NP-Bacto-Balance the phosphate concentration in your tank is rising, please switch back to Elimi-NP.

 

[majeric]

Yes, NP-Bacto-Balance contains some nutrients. Here on our homepage you find our carbon dosing scale which tells when to use which of our carbon dosing products. If with NP-Bacto-Balance the phosphate concentration in your tank is rising, please switch back to Elimi-NP.

Thanks for you reply - i guess the bit i missed was that you need to keep switching between the two.
I'd presume at some point the right dose of bacto balance would maintain the levels correctly in my tank, or is it that i'll need to be switching back and forth for ever more.....

 

[majeric]

Well they are essentially the same product so is switching such a hassle?

I do understand what you are asking, but every method of po4 removal will be a balancing act, gfo is for ever a moving target, same for phosguard, lanthanum choride etc all need adjusting.

Bacto was keeping my po4 very stable but like a fool I went and added some reef roids, one dose of roids and my po4 shot to 0.2, so have some Elimi on the way.

Bacto has a limit to the amount you can dose or it will starve your tank of oxygen, I use double the recommended dose for a new tank, I use the amount for a mature tank of the same size as my few month old tank, as said as long as you see no clouding and have good oxygen exchange you may be able to up the dose but it will only go so far, just as all the other methods, add too much po4 and you will have to try and alter things up, its not going to keep po4 stable no matter what.

If po4 goes too high you may need to supplement with other methods, I don’t think you are at that stage yet, water changes, elimi and time should fix your issue, if you are not adding coral food.

Edit, think of it as being on a diet, eat 2000 a day and you will be stable, add an extra 500 a day you will put on weight, get your weight down by going on a diet you can then go back to your 2000 calories…same for elimi and bacto, get your po4 where you want it by using elimi, then dose bacto to keep it stable, if you add too much po4 it will go up, add elimi to being it back down, then go back to bacto.

thanks for this - this helped a lot.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Thanks for you reply - i guess the bit i missed was that you need to keep switching between the two.
I'd presume at some point the right dose of bacto balance would maintain the levels correctly in my tank, or is it that i'll need to be switching back and forth for ever more.....

I expect that at some point you get the concentration quite stable with only one of both. Usually the difference in resulting phosphate concentration is not so much between both products. Maybe some other factors also contributed to the increase after changing to NP-Bacto-Balance.

 

[majeric]

I expect that at some point you get the concentration quite stable with only one of both. Usually the difference in resulting phosphate concentration is not so much between both products. Maybe some other factors also contributed to the increase after changing to NP-Bacto-Balance.

I made a conscious effort to not change anything in the tank over the last few months.
Food quantity and brand stayed the same.
No additional nutrients - although i did reduce my amino dosing......

 

[Reef.]

I made a conscious effort to not change anything in the tank over the last few months.
Food quantity and brand stayed the same.
No additional nutrients - although i did reduce my amino dosing......

Could be coming out of your rock, my rock is releasing a fair bit with it being new.