phosphate question

goody · Dec 23, 2010

I've been running ecobak pellets now for about 3 months now. Using my hanna p04 checker, I'm usually getting a reading of 0ppm; however, I continue to have HA only near the top of my overflow.

I took a reading 3 days ago and got .19ppm and then today .11ppm. My tank is sps dominant, and most have nice colors and PE, but my Red Planet and Raspberry Limeade Acros are completely brown.

Obviously I want to figure out where I'm getting the phosphates, but my question is when I thaw my frozen cubes, how much can adding this water to the tank affect phosphates? I usually feed 2 cubes twice a day. Other than this, any other suggestions on how to stabilize my p04?

Sasquatch · Dec 23, 2010

you have to look farther down the chemical chain for the answer, the water from the thawed product may have some P04 (have you checked with your meter?) so as the food is consumed/left to rot, P04 is produced. GFO should help, personally Id loose the pellets and switch to mysis (thawed and washed) pellets for a treat or once in a while, the obvious answer is dilution, water changes can't be beat lol

goody · Dec 24, 2010

Sasquatch said:
you have to look farther down the chemical chain for the answer, the water from the thawed product may have some P04 (have you checked with your meter?) so as the food is consumed/left to rot, P04 is produced. GFO should help, personally Id loose the pellets and switch to mysis (thawed and washed) pellets for a treat or once in a while, the obvious answer is dilution, water changes can't be beat lol

thanks for the reply. The pellets are not food pellets, but nitrate and phosphate reducing pellets. I started running these so I wouldn't need to run GFO anymore. I just read a thread on if ceramic plugs leech phosphates into our tanks, so my question is similar in how much phosphates would be in the water that I thawed my mysis and blood worms in?

Sasquatch · Dec 24, 2010

oopsie! lol, besides that you can only detect organic phosphate, kits don't touch inorganic but it has the same effect, have you tried thawing some food and checking the water with your meter?