Phosphate Level

Hello,

My tanks is 3 months old. My Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate levels are always at 0. My Calcium is at 420, the PH at 8.4 and the Carbonate Hardness at 12.
I do water changes every 2 weeks (about 15-20% each time).
I just bought a phosphate testing kit and it's at 0.5 ppm. Is it bad? I read it should be 0 but I am not sure how to lower it. Everything else seems very good...

Thanks!

 

it should be .03ppm or less. You can pick up some phosban to fix it.

 

yaaa... mine is at the same level and i have some pretty nasty brown slime.... I picked some kent marine phosponge and is seems to have done the job... this stuff is just a quick fix. you need to find the source of the phos or atleast reduce the source.

 

The number one source of phosphate in home aquariums is flake food. Frozen foods, fish waste contains phosphate and it is the favorite food for algae. It is not a poison for fish like nitrite but will inhibit coral growth.

I run a phosphate reactor with phosban.
Try not to feed to much.

 

Depending on your tank, the best thing to do is some type of a phosphate reactor and some good GFO/GFH media. Bellaphose, Rowaphos, Eco-Phos, Phosban etc.

Another great thing you can do if you don't have it, is get a refugium setup on the tank and grow some chaeto in it. It will use up the nitrate and phosphate keeping it from other algeas.

Kim

 

+1 on the phosphate reactor, they are only like 30$ now. I put one up on my tank that was almost 3.0 now its under .3 (waiting for my phosphate meter to come in and see what it really is.)