Phosphate Swing

[cdelaney]

I am trying to get my Nitrates and Phosphates in balance. In general, from my testing, Nitrates are usually high even with water changes and Phosphates are low or undetectable. I have been battling Dinos and do not have any algae visible. Corals,for the most part, have not been doing well in this tank.

I have read and am moving forward with the assumption that i should work to raise phosphates to maintain them at around .02-.03

I have been feeding a little on the heavier side (flake food, but i also dont have a great relevance to know what is on the heavy side) and i received my package with neophos today.
I tested prior to dosing neophos and to my surprise my phos read at .08
I did test after feeding at the end of the day.

My primary query: Is it fairly easy to raise phosphate levels (at least temporarily) just by feeding flake food. Is it reasonable to suspect that at .08 that phosphate levels lets say in the morning could be back to 0?
How easy is it to swing phosphate levels vs maintain phosphate levels? or am I asking the wrong questions?

I am using a hanna tester and i know it can be finicky but i do all the steps fairly meticulously to make sure i get a good result.

Lets discuss

 

[cdelaney]

Nitrates are currently 35ppm
before getting the .08 reading on phos my plan was to dose to raise to .02 , test daily and redose until I get a next day test where phosphates are not depleted. Hope to keep the nitrates down this way.

 

[sleepyreef]

I am having similar issues. I neglected my tank for far too long. I have one fish and no coral. I was basically feeding my fish, topping off, no testing and rarely did a water change. I recently have started righting the ship. I have extremely high nitrate 75+ on the Hanna kit and undetectable phosphate. I have done a massive water change but the nitrate is still 75+.

I read that high nitrate and low phosphate means my tank is out of balance. So I started dosing neophos daily to get to 0.2 phosphate but by the next day my phosphate is back to zero on the Hanna kit. I can't get my phosphate to stay above zero. I have no coral and a little hair algae. I'm trying to figure out where all the phosphate goes.

 

[skrappy]

Phosphates(and other elements) can bind up in rocks and substrate when things become unbalanced and may require a large amount before they become available in the water column for testing. Might have better luck testing for phosphorus in these cases instead of phosphates(or test both). When I was diligent with testing to fix mine I would test both phosphorus and phosphates 1 hour after lights on, just before my first feeding every day, and testing nitrates every 2 or three days. Also remember that there is a different range of accuracy on each of these test kits, for example it could read 0.00 when you actually have 0.04.