Having backwards PO4/NO3 issues

[Siberwulf]

Hey folks, I'm getting a dino outbreak under control and I'm having a somewhat atypical issue...my phosphates won't come up off zero and my nitrates are fine (Was 10 last week, I dropped my NO3 dosing and it's 2 this week..kicked back up a little to find the balance)

I'm feeding one cube of mysis shrimp daily for six fish: PJ Cardinal (3), Clown, Filefish and Rabbitfish. I haven't put chaeto back in the tank yet, as I was trying to keep things off zero and avoid dinos, which failed. UV is almost installed though, which will help that.

Do I need to look into dosing Phosphate, or are there things I can do to help boost it? I'm currently running carbon with my BRS reactor, and not adding additional coral food.

My upcoming plans are to add in more pods, dose phyto and add the chaeto back in..but I feel that's only going to suck more phosphates out of the tank.

Looking for ideas including different food!

Thanks!

 

[KrisReef]

Get some fresh oysters or clams and you will have happy fish and phosphorus for all!

 

[ccole]

Hey folks, I'm getting a dino outbreak under control and I'm having a somewhat atypical issue...my phosphates won't come up off zero and my nitrates are fine (Was 10 last week, I dropped my NO3 dosing and it's 2 this week..kicked back up a little to find the balance)

I'm feeding one cube of mysis shrimp daily for six fish: PJ Cardinal (3), Clown, Filefish and Rabbitfish. I haven't put chaeto back in the tank yet, as I was trying to keep things off zero and avoid dinos, which failed. UV is almost installed though, which will help that.

Do I need to look into dosing Phosphate, or are there things I can do to help boost it? I'm currently running carbon with my BRS reactor, and not adding additional coral food.

My upcoming plans are to add in more pods, dose phyto and add the chaeto back in..but I feel that's only going to suck more phosphates out of the tank.

Looking for ideas including different food!

Thanks!

Phyto is a good idea, also try Nori. I've accidentally raised my phosphates feeding nori every day!

I'm not sure I'd add the chaeto back yet. With your phosphates at 0, it may starve and die back.

 

[killer2001]

When I was dealing with dinos I had to dose PO4 for awhile before all my dry rock adsorbed it, otherwise dinos just kept it at zero the whole time.

 

[Ashwinclement]

Powdered coral food should help increase phosphate, reefroids always raises my phosphate level

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If nitrate is lowish, I'd feed more. If it is at your target or higher, I'd dose phosphate.

 

[Siberwulf]

If nitrate is lowish, I'd feed more. If it is at your target or higher, I'd dose phosphate.

I'm dosing NO3 right now.

- I originally dosed 1ml/day, it bottomed out to zero.
- When I upped the dose 2ml/day, it jumped to 10 in a week.
- When I'm tuned it down to 1.5ml/day, it fell to 2 in a week.

I just put it at 1.7ml/day to see where it hovers. My goal is to peg it around 5-10 without some major tweaking. I'm not sure how I'd interpret your answer based on this, though. I can pretty much move my NO3 around at-will.

 

[Reef.]

What are you using to test po4? Are you sure it’s zero?

 

[Siberwulf]

What are you using to test po4? Are you sure it’s zero?

Hanna HI713. I've had it read actual numbers before, it's just been trending downward to zero and finally hit it.

 

[EricR]

Take this as a single sample set (my experience only):
Feeding more never worked for me but I have a pretty low bio-load (4 fish in 40 gallons).
Dosing Trisodium Phosphate is what worked for me (((direct from Loudwolf website w/free shipping was cheaper than same on Amazon)))

Aside notes (only if of interest):
- bottoming out phosphate led to dino outbreak (as you often hear)
- once my phosphates were being maintained, I noticed a massive drop in nitrates which many would've expected but I did not
- Calcium Nitrate (from Loudwolf) brought my nitrates back up
- still dosing phosphate daily (going on 7 months) but nitrates stabilized very quickly without many doses (for me)

 

[Siberwulf]

Take this as a single sample set (my experience only):
Feeding more never worked for me but I have a pretty low bio-load (4 fish in 40 gallons).
Dosing Trisodium Phosphate is what worked for me (((direct from Loudwolf website w/free shipping was cheaper than same on Amazon)))

Aside notes (only if of interest):
- bottoming out phosphate led to dino outbreak (as you often hear)
- once my phosphates were being maintained, I noticed a massive drop in nitrates which many would've expected but I did not
- Calcium Nitrate (from Loudwolf) brought my nitrates back up
- still dosing phosphate daily (going on 7 months) but nitrates stabilized very quickly without many doses (for me)

I can +1 the dinos. It's pretty bad right now. I finally got my UV hooked up, so that should help. I'm expecting to see Phosphates come up a little, which will then drop my Nitrates again. I have some of that Loudwolf on the way, so I'll be dosing that if I can't get them up to date. I'm also going to be varying up my feeding since I didn't know any better....something with a higher PO4 level.