Overdosed Phosphates

[NJTaxMan]

Noticed a wonderful outbreak of Dino's. Did my water testing and sure enough my nitrates and phosphates are rock bottom, undetectable. So what do i do? I break out the Potassium Nitrate and Trisodium Phosphate. I figured out how much to dose on the potassium nitrate because my first few times i had a decent nitrate spike. The trisodium phosphate....well, i thought i read how to properly calculate dosing. Made a solution of about a cup of water with 2 grams of trisodium. That works about to be just about 1.16 grams of actual phosphate. Based on Randy's calculation, i should have mixed that much with a liter. Based on upscaling his calcs to the size of my tank, i should have dosed approximately 0.1 grams of phosphates in solution to bring my phosphates up to about .3 PPM. I ended up dosing about .8 grams bringing my phosphates almost instantly up to about 2.5 PPMs. My tank was not happy!!! As of now, it does appear that I have only lost my prized RMF Break out your Wallet Millie. The only saving grace is that my Cheato is a machine and got the phosphates down to about .3 in just over a day (on top of a 10% water change).

So needless to say...lesson learned and hopefully the damage is limited to just the millie!!

 

[mwil79]

I've dosed potassium nitrate before but just curious why phosphates? I've always just done some reef roids maybe some polyplabs booster and a day or two of only pellet food and usually does the trick.

 

[Deleted member 27248]

I've dosed potassium nitrate before but just curious why phosphates? I've always just done some reef roids maybe some polyplabs booster and a day or two of only pellet food and usually does the trick.

I daily does phosphate…I make a gallon of
Solution and have it on auto. Or else I will bottom out as well.

 

[NJTaxMan]

I daily does phosphate…I make a gallon of
Solution and have it on auto. Or else I will bottom out as well.

Exactly. My cheato is too efficient. I feed pretty heavy but I’ve found that it is darn hard to maintain these levels without stripping them through filter then dosing back in. Harder that calc and Alk in my opinion

 

[Deleted member 27248]

Exactly. My cheato is too efficient. I feed pretty heavy but I’ve found that it is darn hard to maintain these levels without stripping them through filter then dosing back in. Harder that calc and Alk in my opinion

Yes I agree…I don’t feed heavy, just enough to keep them happy…I dose phosphate daily to keep between .03-.25…anywhere in between and the tank is happy.although I have not been able to get phosphate above .1 for
Some time haha…less fluctuations when you dose as compared to feeding reef roids or food I think.

 

[ericrodriguez]

Reef roids would bring them up quickly the main thing would be to dose the same amount and test to see how much that amount will increase the phosphate.
Corals would definitely love that route!!

 

[NJTaxMan]

I daily does phosphate…I make a gallon of
Solution and have it on auto. Or else I will bottom out as well

I daily does phosphate…I make a gallon of
Solution and have it on auto. Or else I will bottom out as well.

Out of curiosity...what do you dose with, what is your solution's concentration and what is your dosing routine? I just started on Phosphate (Trisodium Phosphate) so hoping to avoid another oops. Based on Randy's dosing guides...2 grams per liter concentration will raise a 100 liter's phosphate by 0.01 PPM by dosing 1 ML. As such, with my approximate 400 liter total volume...i was going to start off by dosing about 100 MLs a day. (based on rough math, this would be putting in about 0.25 ppm a day). Obviously without knowing my tanks consumption, concerned if this is going to cause too much. Thoughts?

 

[Deleted member 27248]

Out of curiosity...what do you dose with, what is your solution's concentration and what is your dosing routine? I just started on Phosphate (Trisodium Phosphate) so hoping to avoid another oops. Based on Randy's dosing guides...2 grams per liter concentration will raise a 100 liter's phosphate by 0.01 PPM by dosing 1 ML. As such, with my approximate 400 liter total volume...i was going to start off by dosing about 100 MLs a day. (based on rough math, this would be putting in about 0.25 ppm a day). Obviously without knowing my tanks consumption, concerned if this is going to cause too much. Thoughts?

I also use trisodium phosphate from loudwolf…I made a gallon, approx 3700ML.I forget how much I added, but I use James planted tank calculator…so my system is approx 200g and I know 1ml of solution adds .05 to my system. I currently dose 6-8ML a day…you are going to have to play around with consumption and see how the tank reacts.and consumption changes as well. Coral demand, feeding, refugium lighting schedule etc.