0 phosphate and carbon dosing questions

[Reign1]

Following along as I started w/ dry rock and a little LR. I have had low Nitrate and phosphate and have had to dose early on (Neo Phos and Nitrate). Tank seems happy. recently I made mistake as a couple corals looked bad of running a poly pad and boom bottomed out phosphate. I would suggest gradually dosing waiting a day testing and then dosing again. It took me dosing about 3x to get my 100:1 ratio and things are back on track again.
Good luck and hopefully you can get it so you dont see any Dinos.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Also careful everyone dosing something like reef roids everyday. You might hit a saturation point and raise the phosphates uncontrollably very quickly. Its much harder to test and adjust than dosing phosphate. Especially in a new tank.

 

[Hemmbone20]

Definitely feed more or dose. Low P really jacks up and new tank. I’d bring it up to .08 minimal!

Neophos is on the way! Thanks for the advice.

 

[Hemmbone20]

For future orders, if needed, I recommend food grade sodium phosphate rather than neophos. The food product is much less expensive and carries a purity assurance the hobby product lacks.

Ok noted thank you. Hopefully I won’t be dosing PO4 for long but if I order more I’ll try that out.

 

[Doc’sReef]

Ok noted thank you. Hopefully I won’t be dosing PO4 for long but if I order more I’ll try that out.

Watch your nitrates as you add phosphate BTW. I have seen my nitrate plummet since adding phosphate. I wonder how much is really even going into my rock at this point since the nitrates have dropped I think the microbiome was just waiting for a surplus of phosphate. I suspect they are metabolizing most of it and I’m shifting to being nitrate limited now. This is my assumption at this point.
Keeping nitrate and phosphate supplements handy seems like a best practice when starting carbon dosing for the first time in case things go off course.

 

[rishma]

Also careful everyone dosing something like reef roids everyday. You might hit a saturation point and raise the phosphates uncontrollably very quickly. Its much harder to test and adjust than dosing phosphate. Especially in a new tank.

I had this happen. Bottomed out my nutrients because of a mistake and started feeding a little reef roids every day to raise phosphate above undetectable. I have scars from battling dinos and didn’t want to do that again. I got impatient and fed a bunch at once…bam! 0.10…0.12…0.16 ppm phosphate and rising fast…then had to use GFO to get that under control…I felt pretty dumb. I probably could have been more patient brining them up or down but all is well that ends well.

I now keep food grade TSP mixed up on hand to correct mistakes in a more controlled manner.

 

[BriDroid]

I'm battling something very similar. I will dose 0.5ml of NeoPhos, that will bring my PO4 up to 0.02ppm and within 2 days, it will measure 0 again. I keep a bottle of NeoNitro and NeoPhos on hand. I'd like to get to the point where I can test once a week, but I have to at least every 2 days. So far, Dinos and any other uglies have been held at bay. I'm sure if I missed some doses of phosphate or nitrates they would show up though!

 

[Doc’sReef]

In most tanks, I actually think ammonia dosing may be a better bet, but if one wants to dose nitrate, the best choices are food grades of sodium or calcium nitrate.

DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

Some reef aquaria have chronic low nitrogen availability. One indicator is very low nitrate. Nitrate dosing is a fine remedy, but it is possible that ammonia dosing may be more beneficial for some organisms since ammonia can be energetically easier to assimilate than is nitrate. For this...

www.reef2reef.com

For phosphate dosing, use this calculator and the entry for potassium phospahte. it is close enough to sodium phosphate. You can elect your own concentrations in it.

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

I would not dose N and P in a ratio, but based on tank demand.

The idea of dosing ammonia sounds interesting as from what I’ve read the zooxanthellae prefer it over nitrate. But if you have a healthy microbiome how long does it remain as ammonia to be “bioavailable” before it’s converted to nitrate? What are your thoughts on urea ? Is ammonia still the preferred N source?

For those who are flirting with double zeros here is a few things that may help also while trying to correct based on what I’ve read and experienced to hopefully reduce stress on the corals.
Lowering light intensity since there is a lack of N and P so photosynthesis is not optimal to begin with.
I also left my skimmer to run for oxygenation but not to collect anything to hopefully encourage nitrate to go up.
Reducing alkalinity since growth is inhibited from lack of N and P. I have observed my alkalinity rise as my N and P went undetectable which I, assuming is caused by diminished calcification. I think accounting for it would be something to consider.

 

[Hemmbone20]

Watch your nitrates as you add phosphate BTW. I have seen my nitrate plummet since adding phosphate. I wonder how much is really even going into my rock at this point since the nitrates have dropped I think the microbiome was just waiting for a surplus of phosphate. I suspect they are metabolizing most of it and I’m shifting to being nitrate limited now. This is my assumption at this point.
Keeping nitrate and phosphate supplements handy seems like a best practice when starting carbon dosing for the first time in case things go off course.

I have some nitrate to dose as well.. I had to dose that a month or so ago when my system had 0.00 nitrates..
phosphates have been readable but still way too low. I recently got my Hanna checker for phos so I’m ready to tackle the issue.

I’ll plan on dosing PO4 till it’s a healthy level and I’ll check nitrates daily as well. Thank you.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

But if you have a healthy microbiome how long does it remain as ammonia to be “bioavailable” before it’s converted to nitrate? What are your thoughts on urea ? Is ammonia still the preferred N source?

Not long. It's a race between corals and nitrifiers, which is why I believe that folks using bottled nitrifiers and using media designed to facilitate the nitrogen cycle may be doing more harm than good for their tanks.

Urea may be OK to use, but since we cannot measure it, and don't really know how fast it converts to ammonia or is consumed, I recommend ammonia as a better bet. It may have the same issue with bacteria racing to consume it.

 

[Doc’sReef]

Not long. It's a race between corals and nitrifiers, which is why I believe that folks using bottled nitrifiers and using media designed to facilitate the nitrogen cycle may be doing more harm than good for their tanks.

Urea may be OK to use, but since we cannot measure it, and don't really know how fast it converts to ammonia or is consumed, I recommend ammonia as a better bet. It may have the same issue with bacteria racing to consume it.

Thats very interesting. Do you feel that adding nitrifying bacteria on a weekly or biweekly interval like many companies advertise is really needed? If we are feeding a carbon source won’t these bacteria be reproducing and replenishing themselves naturally based on the food source available to reach a homeostasis relative to the food source. Or is it to help outcompete pathogenic strains by replenishing food strains? I understand doing it if an antibiotic was used or some other extreme scenario but I wonder how useful it is once you have a healthy balance of bacteria.
Getting back to ammonia I would imagine having a healthy fish population would be the most natural way to give the symbiotic zooxanthellae the ammonia they want and the carbon dosing could bolster the bacteria that the coral polyp can consume and get their nitrogen from that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thats very interesting. Do you feel that adding nitrifying bacteria on a weekly or biweekly interval like many companies advertise is really needed? If we are feeding a carbon source won’t these bacteria be reproducing and replenishing themselves naturally based on the food source available to reach a homeostasis relative to the food source. Or is it to help outcompete pathogenic strains by replenishing food strains? I understand doing it if an antibiotic was used or some other extreme scenario but I wonder how useful it is once you have a healthy balance of bacteria.
Getting back to ammonia I would imagine having a healthy fish population would be the most natural way to give the symbiotic zooxanthellae the ammonia they want and the carbon dosing could bolster the bacteria that the coral polyp can consume and get their nitrogen from that.

I think it is likely a net negative and has no possible benefit if you are talking about just nitrifiers. No established reef tank gets elevated ammonia from lack of nitrifiers.

Having a lot of fish is a fine plan if the tank can handle them (aggression, power failure scenarios, etc.).

But dosing ammonia is cheap and easy.

DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

Some reef aquaria have chronic low nitrogen availability. One indicator is very low nitrate. Nitrate dosing is a fine remedy, but it is possible that ammonia dosing may be more beneficial for some organisms since ammonia can be energetically easier to assimilate than is nitrate. For this...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[BriDroid]

Not long. It's a race between corals and nitrifiers, which is why I believe that folks using bottled nitrifiers and using media designed to facilitate the nitrogen cycle may be doing more harm than good for their tanks.

Urea may be OK to use, but since we cannot measure it, and don't really know how fast it converts to ammonia or is consumed, I recommend ammonia as a better bet. It may have the same issue with bacteria racing to consume it.

This is one of the reasons that I removed all of the bio media from my AIO after reading what @Randy Holmes-Farley had to say. I do have a few pieces of rock rubble under the skimmer for the pods, but that is it. A skimmer, mech filter floss and that is it. Tank is doing great too.