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Re: PO4
> I have a 5 gallon high light - 40 watt CF - and compresses CO2, 20 - 30
> ppm, tank.
Why a small tank yet a big CO2 system?
> After playing with RO in order to get rid of BBA and staghorn
> the only thing I obtained was that all my plants besides glosso stopped
> growing in spite of careful reconstruction with Kent RO wright and some
> extra Ca and Mg plus Flourish.
Well BBA(Audouiella) is not helped by adding RO nor is staghorn(Entromorpha)
nor are they "caused" by PO4.
> After going slowly back to half RO half tap water, which gave me 5 KH, 6
> GH, 10 ppm N, 0.1ppmPO4 the tennelus is still "on holding".
> The reason to use half RO is that my tap has around 80 ( ! ) ppm N, so
> after 1 gallon water change I got the above 10 ppm N.
> I also add KCl and Flourish and the substrate is enriched with Duplarite.
See below.
>
> I suspect that PO4 might be the culprit and I wander what I could use to
> increase the concentration. And also I would like to use something that
> would not affect my Ph.
Well you still have some, so it's not likely. Your tank sounds a bit more
like a CO2 problem. Small tank, lots of light. How much do you test the pH
KH? When during the day etc? Your adding the right stuff and should have
decent growth but I'm wondering about the CO2. Staghorn often appears in new
tanks and in crashed/redone tanks after a few days. It hangs on but doesn't
like good CO2 levels, like the BBA. If you trim it it should not come back
IF your CO2 is good and consistent.
Always a PO4 question these days:)
Well the NO3 is way out of line. Your on a well system? That's way above the
MCL(15ppm of N and 66ppm of NO3) so somebody should be getting on that
unless your on a well. Your right in the middle of fertilized agriculture
though. All that run off goes somewhere......
The Monobasic Potassium phosphate stuff has not ever done much in the way
of pH shifts due to the incredible small amounts used(about a BB sized bit
and even that may be a bit much for your tank). But H3PO4 would be just as
effective too but again you only need a tiny little amount. See if you can
get it from school. That's where I get all my goodies.
Regards,
Tom Barr