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Dosing Phosphate



Roger Miller wrote:  >>> I observed recently that some of my tanks are
phosphorus limited and that I can dose phosphates to the water column - at
least on a sporadic basis - without suffering excessive algae growth.  That
leads me to look for ways to safely dose phosphate.>>>

I have also played around with dosing phosphates with the same results.  In
high light, high CO2, well-fertilized (in terms of micronutrients) tanks I
have noticed improvements with small occasional additions of phosphate.  I'm
talking about very small additions here (0.1 ppm or less).  For this reason,
I have been using Jobes' regular plant fertilizer sticks occasionally in the
substrate for the last couple of years without any noticeable ill effects.
These have more phosphorus than the Palm version.  

One of our San Francisco local plant group members recently put 8 regular
Jobes sticks in a well-run 50 gallon tank and to my surprise, has not had
any problems with algae and has apparently not had much leakage into the
water column either.  There may be more flexibility than we think with the
use of Jobe's sticks.

Steve Dixon     San Francisco