Fish_Fry
Active Member
Figured I'd share something stupid I did.
I've been battling nuisance algae which presumably has been caused by some high PO4 levels. Over the past month or so, I've made minor changes to try to address the algae and its root cause such as: reducing feedings, increasing the photo period on the refugium, changing how long the skimmer runs, dosing some phyto & pods, dosing Microbacter 7 and adding some more cuc.
Despite these efforts my PO4 has remained sky high the last few times I've tested. I was considering adding a GFO reactor or trying lanthanum chloride. I went to test the tank this morning. I pulled out my Hanna Phosphate test kit and realized it was filled with Nitrate reagent packets. D'oh!
I'm not sure how I mixed them up. I'm at the age where I'm starting to need reading glasses. I've rewritten summaries of all the testing instructions on post it notes, this makes it a lot easier to read without glasses. But this only works if you are smart enough to not mix up the reagents. I'll have to go through my notes to attempt to figure out how long I've been doing this but it's probably been the last 3-5 tests.
Testing with the correct reagent got me to a much more reasonable 0.12
That's my dumb move of the month.
I've been battling nuisance algae which presumably has been caused by some high PO4 levels. Over the past month or so, I've made minor changes to try to address the algae and its root cause such as: reducing feedings, increasing the photo period on the refugium, changing how long the skimmer runs, dosing some phyto & pods, dosing Microbacter 7 and adding some more cuc.
Despite these efforts my PO4 has remained sky high the last few times I've tested. I was considering adding a GFO reactor or trying lanthanum chloride. I went to test the tank this morning. I pulled out my Hanna Phosphate test kit and realized it was filled with Nitrate reagent packets. D'oh!
I'm not sure how I mixed them up. I'm at the age where I'm starting to need reading glasses. I've rewritten summaries of all the testing instructions on post it notes, this makes it a lot easier to read without glasses. But this only works if you are smart enough to not mix up the reagents. I'll have to go through my notes to attempt to figure out how long I've been doing this but it's probably been the last 3-5 tests.
Testing with the correct reagent got me to a much more reasonable 0.12
That's my dumb move of the month.
