Parameters have me puzzled.

[The Fish Tank Hobbyist]

Anyone else have the following that is below happen with your tank parameters before? If so - why would something like this happen?

- I’’ll list the parameters next and below the parameters I will list the question that came up after the results! They have me a little puzzled relative to the relationship of nitrates to phosphates - seems backwards!!

Tested parameters today are as follows: (tank size - 10 gallons) I’ll post a video of it below.

Alk 9.5 - via Hanna checker

Nitrate - api test - somewhere between 0 to 5. Shade of yellow is difficult to read - definitely less than 5.. I can’t imagine it’s zero but my wife looked at it too and she thought it was the shade of yellow closer to zero!

Phosphate - Hanna ulr - tested more than it would even read relative to the max which is 0.90 ppm. It hit 0.90 and blinked which indicates it is higher than it will go!

PHOSPHATE RESULTS FROM ABOVE: I found this very odd - what would cause high phosphates but have as low of nitrates as I do? My water came from an LFS. Also, I did several small water changes on my 10 gallon nano this past week - more on this below.

Ammonia - 0 to 0.25. Again shade of yellow is almost impossible to decipher - api test

Nitrite - 0

Ph - 8.0 or 8.1

Salinity - between 1.025 or 1.026

Not tested - calcium and magnesium

Water quality question based on results from above:

Anyone have an idea what’s up with my phosphate results above? Anyone else with a nano with higher phosphate than nitrate issues after a good amount of small water changes through out the week? I purchased my water from a LFS but I did not test the water for phosphates before hand and made an assumption it was ok. It may or may not have been ok and no way to find out now and after the fact!!

WHAT I DID THIS WEEK:
I did 4 separate days of small 1.5 and up to 3 gallon water changes this past week on my 10 gallon. I did this many small water changes to ensure I did not have something up with my water quality considering how a recent coral in the tank was looking! (That’s a whole different story!! - but the coral in question is looking much better the last couple of days). I figured out it was actually a lighting issue and placement!

BACK TO TEST RESULTS:
Test results of the phosphates in comparison to the nitrates do have me wondering about water? Is there a good chance that the water I was exchanging had elevated phosphates or are there a number of other reasons that a tank might have phosphate levels greater than nitrates? If so, what other things may cause this?

Of note, I did feed reef roids his week - an extreme small amount of reef roids via direct feeding to the corals via plastic syringe on 3 different occasions this past week. This was more than usual because I felt with as many water changes that I did - I needed to replace some nutrients in the h2o.. However, with testing 0 to maybe 5 nitrates today but having over .90 phosphates - again, the reading was so high on the phosphate that the ulr Hanna checker wouldn’t even go high enough..... I’m puzzled?

What’s your thoughts and or experiences? I appreciate your ideas.

If you want to familiarize yourself with my tank - below is a 2 to 3 minute introduction to myself and my tank!

 

[Samina]

As far as the Hanna ULR goes, I am guessing you meant you got 90 ppb (not ppm) and that blinked and went off? I am not sure why it blinked at 90, because it’s max reading is 200. And it’ll blink and shut off if your levels are measuring beyond that. So I can’t offer much help there. Do you happen to have another PO4 test kit, or maybe take some water to your LFS for them to test. Most will do it for free.

Anyhow, that 90 ppb coverts to 0.276 ppm. Which is very possible if you are feeding Reef Roids a few times a week since it’s a 10g setup. Another possibility is phosphate leaching out of your rock, if it’s a newer setup. Maybe you can test a water sample from the water you get from your LFS and check to see if any is coming in that way. But I know Reef Roids is pretty heavy on phosphate, a little goes a very long way from my experience.

 

[The Fish Tank Hobbyist]

As far as the Hanna ULR goes, I am guessing you meant you got 90 ppb (not ppm) and that blinked and went off? I am not sure why it blinked at 90, because it’s max reading is 200. And it’ll blink and shut off if your levels are measuring beyond that. So I can’t offer much help there. Do you happen to have another PO4 test kit, or maybe take some water to your LFS for them to test. Most will do it for free.

Anyhow, that 90 ppb coverts to 0.276 ppm. Which is very possible if you are feeding Reef Roids a few times a week since it’s a 10g setup. Another possibility is phosphate leaching out of your rock, if it’s a newer setup. Maybe you can test a water sample from the water you get from your LFS and check to see if any is coming in that way. But I know Reef Roids is pretty heavy on phosphate, a little goes a very long way from my experience.

Good points. My Hanna checker is one of the new models - the ULR HI 774 which does do ppm. It will read up to .90 ppm if I understand it right. Here it is - https://hannainst.com/phosphate-ultra-low-range-colorimeter-checkerr-hc-hi774.html

So - any other thoughts?

 

[blasterman]

Heres what I think of API nitrate tests: go to the nearest mall. Walk up to a random stranger and ask them what your nitrate level is. Their answer will be as accurate as the API. Salifert, Seachem.....anything but the API.

Fresh salt mix can ping an ammonia test with a trace result in a young tank. Something to do with the manufacturing process and seen this also happen with API kits. If your tank was cycled it's not going to un-cycle. I would ignore it .

IMO, electronic testers really need calibration reference of some sort . You can test distilled water to verify a null reading but you dont know much else. I really dont trust LFS R/O unless I know the owners.

Roids will cause a bit of a nitrate and PO4 jump, but I dont think it's the case here.