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Re: [APD] Phosphates too much? any alternative answers to reducin g the problem.



Nick,
Phosphate is a beneficial chemical, an essential fertilizer for plants. Tom Barr has reported that even high levels of phosphate don't do harm to plants or fish, nor cause algae. Are you using plant sticks or similar substrate fertilizers? If so, that could be a source of the phosphate increase you seem to have, plus it could be adding NH4 to the water column, and that will cause an algae problem. Or, you could be adding NH4 by changing water, if your water has Chloramine instead of chlorine in it, and again that could be feeding the algae.


Vaughn H.

On Wednesday, August 10, 2005, at 08:18 PM, Nicolas Munro wrote:

Is there a more naturally occurring product I can add to my substrate?

kinda like peat or carbon?

Liam Newcombe wrote:

Nick

I had very high Phosphates as well in my tank, the test kit went to full colour (5ppm) in <10 seconds not the 2 minutes stated. I now use D&D RowaPhos Phosphate remover in one of their fluid bed reactors. It got rid of the phosphate in a day and really stunted the growth of the blue-green stringy algae. I still get the light green stringy algae but that is from my (still too high) nitrate level.
There are other equivalent products for Rowaphos from other vendors as well but I have no experience with those.


Liam

-----Original Message-----
From: Nicolas Munro [mailto:nmunro at qld_yokogawa.com.au] Sent: 10 August 2005 04:47
To: aquatic plants digest
Subject: [APD] Phosphates too much? any alternative answers to reducing the problem.


Hi,

I have a Hagen test kit which says under 1 ppm is ok (as far as I can recall) and the test measurement should be taken after 2 minutes of reaction and it has a high level of 5ppm.

I'm getting a high reading of Phosphate in my water. When I test my water I get more than 5ppm in just 30 seconds which to me indicates a problem.

My fish tank is suffering from algae which sticks on the glass and also makes the water a slight green / yellow colour.



My question is simple but I can't find many alternatives, how do I reduce the phosphate?

I've got lots of live plants, I've tried underfeeding my fish for a week, I've tried replacing water very regularly (more than 90% for a couple of weeks/water changes) - my tap water by the way has 0.5ppm Phosphate after a reaction time of 2 minutes.

_Are there any alternatives? _

=Nick
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