phosphate reading

[butteye]

Tested tap water PO4 reading using salifert test kit reads = 0. Then tried on tank water and it reads 0.03. Why like that?? tot tap water shld have high phosphate level?? pls comments..

[butteye]

Anybody did tried he reading of PO4 on tap water before?? need some comments.

[LaW]

never tried that.

but i think theress something leaking PO4 into ur tank.

[butteye]

Tot PO4 is external chemistry instead??

[LaW]

read somewhere that some carbon used leaks PO4.

and some stuff you added into the tank might contain PO4 too.

[35Cents]

Law is correct. In fact all carbon does leaches PO4, just need to find one that leaches the least. In addition, frozen food like BS and MS does contain a small amount of PO4 too if I'm not wrong. Some reefers here wash the food after it thawed to rid it.

But a bit funny, data from PUB stated PO4 is <0.1... always know that a certain amount is in tap water.... where u stay? You must be lucky to get PO4 free tap water source from one of the reservoirs here.

[minsmarine]

Tested Hougang's Tapwater for past 5 months ( like every 2 weeks ). Here are average reading.

NO2 - 0

NO3 - 0

PO4 - 0

All test kits salifert.

[butteye]

Law is correct. In fact all carbon does leaches PO4, just need to find one that leaches the least. In addition, frozen food like BS and MS does contain a small amount of PO4 too if I'm not wrong. Some reefers here wash the food after it thawed to rid it.

But a bit funny, data from PUB stated PO4 is <0.1... always know that a certain amount is in tap water.... where u stay? You must be lucky to get PO4 free tap water source from one of the reservoirs here.

Haha, me staying sengkang. Maybe some other bro from sengkang can test their PO4 and verify??

[minsmarine]

LR can leek PO4.

Like my LR keep leeking PO4, slowly but surely.

Because , I didn't have a good skimmer in early day.

[weileong]

It's not that the tap water is PO4 free but it is below the detection limit of the salifert test kit and/or how the tester's eye can see the very slight blue color

I had compared the Salifert PO4 test test using high sensitivity mode and hanna PO4 meter.

The salifert test kit shows undetectable PO4 (looks colorless to my eyes) while the hanna PO4 meter shows 0.1ppm.

[lightningstrike]

Tested Hougang's Tapwater for past 5 months ( like every 2 weeks ). Here are average reading.

NO2 - 0

NO3 - 0

PO4 - 0

All test kits salifert.

abt time i move to hougang.

[minsmarine]

sound like I tested water for you to move in haa haa

Would be glad if you could move in near to my house. So we got more partnet to go LFS and help each other

Weileong,

Yes I agree with you. Forgot to mention that And ... Razak told me you have that meter.

[Reefbum]

Read somewhere that every living things has P04.Maybe thats why P04 can come from the LR,LS food, etc.Anyone can confirm this?

[madmac]

Your very right Reefbum. No living thing can exist without P. Its is everything organic, esp. plant matter. I came across a sign board in a pasar malam stall selling raw Japanese seaweed, it specifies the nutritional % of the minerals, and it says for P is somewhere in the order of 84%... bananas is another high P. fruit, sources of quick energy.

For the reef world, P is seldom found in areas where water is very clear, they are found to be very high near the mouth of estuaries, river beds.

Two impt. points about PO4 is that, there are water soluble PO4 and organic(solid) PO4... what most of us test for is water soluble PO4... which is rather incorrect... as it doesn't give a true picture of the PO4 in the tank.. Organic PO4 is efficiently stored in the DSB(for a while, maybe as long as months and years sometimes depending on teh size) and in algae and other organic life forms, bacterial detritus etc and to get the true picture, is extremely difficult...

The organic P once broken down will become water soluble P, which is what we test for.... so any value higher than 0.03 is sometimes considered very very high.

The easy test of organic PO4 is your very own eyes... if you see hair algae, cyano, etc.. you'll know that the PO4 is very high... depending on what you keep, you may be content, eg anemones, mushrooms, some softies. Hard corals seldom can tolerate P, most will stop growing after some time and just die.

mins right too, LRs do leak out PO4, they do so because they run out of space to store them as space in the LR are much limited when compared to DSBs... but not "slowly and surely"... it is more immediate, while DSB give you a false hope that PO4 is low, slowing building up over time.

Ask yourself what you are keeping first and to determine if they are PO4 tolerant, if they are then theres not much you'll need to worry abt...

[shoelevy]

hi madmac

i'm interested in finding out what happens when both the DSB and LR become saturated with po4 after a looong time and cannot store them anymore...both the rocks and DSB will leach po4?

is this the time when po4 removers are critical in removing the leached po4 and po4 introduced through feeding?

paiseh but one more question...does a good skimmer help in controlling po4 levels?

thank you!

[butteye]

Your very right Reefbum. No living thing can exist without P. Its is everything organic, esp. plant matter. I came across a sign board in a pasar malam stall selling raw Japanese seaweed, it specifies the nutritional % of the minerals, and it says for P is somewhere in the order of 84%... bananas is another high P. fruit, sources of quick energy.

For the reef world, P is seldom found in areas where water is very clear, they are found to be very high near the mouth of estuaries, river beds.

Two impt. points about PO4 is that, there are water soluble PO4 and organic(solid) PO4... what most of us test for is water soluble PO4... which is rather incorrect... as it doesn't give a true picture of the PO4 in the tank.. Organic PO4 is efficiently stored in the DSB(for a while, maybe as long as months and years sometimes depending on teh size) and in algae and other organic life forms, bacterial detritus etc and to get the true picture, is extremely difficult...

The organic P once broken down will become water soluble P, which is what we test for.... so any value higher than 0.03 is sometimes considered very very high.

The easy test of organic PO4 is your very own eyes... if you see hair algae, cyano, etc.. you'll know that the PO4 is very high... depending on what you keep, you may be content, eg anemones, mushrooms, some softies. Hard corals seldom can tolerate P, most will stop growing after some time and just die.

mins right too, LRs do leak out PO4, they do so because they run out of space to store them as space in the LR are much limited when compared to DSBs... but not "slowly and surely"... it is more immediate, while DSB give you a false hope that PO4 is low, slowing building up over time.

Ask yourself what you are keeping first and to determine if they are PO4 tolerant, if they are then theres not much you'll need to worry abt...

Thanks, Very insightful. then what if those going for BB tank, wouldn't it deprive those organic P with lesser time/space to house before eventually turns to soluble P??

[madmac]

Yes, theres lesser time for LRs to store, due to space constraints... and that is THE WHOLE IDEA of using a BB... because you don't want to store thing nutrients... you'll have to find another way to export them...quick... real quick, the quickest way is to remove them before they even breakdown...

shoelevy, the PO4 removers will be useless when that happens... because the breakdown is continuous and soon the PO4 removers will be exhausted... they absorb really fast though but only remove PO4...

I think it can be efficient (plenty of flowthru relative to tanks).... and effective (your tuning).

[weisoon]

Two impt. points about PO4 is that, there are water soluble

The organic P once broken down will become water soluble P, which is what we test for.... so any value higher than 0.03 is sometimes considered very very high.

All or almost all test kits test only for inorganic PO4. Organic PO4 is very difficult to test unless done in the lab.

[madmac]

Hi weisoon, .... the alien is back...i haven't seen you around here for sometime....

yup thats what I meant... by test kits measuring water soluble PO4... theres no such thing as 'inorganic PO4'... they're so so organic... it can't be anymore inorganic...

[cjh]

abt time i move to hougang.

u sounds like u live in the water...

[SBS_Transit]

Tested Hougang's Tapwater for past 5 months ( like every 2 weeks ). Here are average reading.

NO2 - 0

NO3 - 0

PO4 - 0

All test kits salifert.

i second that