I am seriously thinking about starting to add some phosban to my system due to recurrent algae issues. My question is, does it lower alk? Will I have to monitor alk all the time or what? I don't really want that hassle either, but choose your poison, I guess....
phosban and alk
- Thread starter Dr.Nate
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It can lower your ph and alk. We have about the same set up except I don’t have corals or the uv sterilizer yet. I assume you use ro or ro\di water so do you know what the source of your po4 is? Do you know what level your po4 is?
Personally I use Seachem Phosguard but honestly I’ve never seen my po4 above .1 so I don’t know how well it works.
Personally I use Seachem Phosguard but honestly I’ve never seen my po4 above .1 so I don’t know how well it works.
My PO4 is reading zero, but I have an aquarium pharmaceuticals test kit and I'm not so sure how great it is.....
Can't find the source of P04, but there must be some or I wouldn't be having algae issues....
The only thing I can think of is my CC substrate and I'm not looking forward to changing that out anytime soon
Can't find the source of P04, but there must be some or I wouldn't be having algae issues....
The only thing I can think of is my CC substrate and I'm not looking forward to changing that out anytime soon
The AP tests are usually fairly reliable. If I’m not 100% sure of a reading (like getting a 0 reading) I’ll use half as much water but the same about of drops to see if I get any color change. I think I read that they can expire with time so if they are old you might want to have a lfs test it as well.
Using the Phosguard I haven’t noticed any appreciable drop in ph or alk and is states it doesn’t leach back into the system so I usually leave it in for a couple of weeks at a time.
As long as you vacuum the cc it usually isn’t a problem.
Just about everyone has algae issues at one point in keeping a sw tank and it’s not always tied to po4, that just seems to be a culprit most of the time along with excessive lighting\feeding.
Are you talking about a few patches here and there or is your tank inundated with it? I have 0 readings as well with two different tests and I still get small patches every once in a while. I think high levels of no3 can bring it on as well but you have to have readings of over 20 ppm for that to be a factor and most people don’t.
Using the Phosguard I haven’t noticed any appreciable drop in ph or alk and is states it doesn’t leach back into the system so I usually leave it in for a couple of weeks at a time.
As long as you vacuum the cc it usually isn’t a problem.
Just about everyone has algae issues at one point in keeping a sw tank and it’s not always tied to po4, that just seems to be a culprit most of the time along with excessive lighting\feeding.
Are you talking about a few patches here and there or is your tank inundated with it? I have 0 readings as well with two different tests and I still get small patches every once in a while. I think high levels of no3 can bring it on as well but you have to have readings of over 20 ppm for that to be a factor and most people don’t.
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