Bound Phosphate

You just lurk around waiting to make trouble. I notice you are back just minutes after the board came back on-line. ;)
 
Yes I know, I've been doing damage control since this morning. We sure would like to know who made those fake posts from Doug and Mike.
 
I have some rock that was stored badly by ex-aquarium guy. It took two years for rock to stop being an nutrent source.

Boomer thanks for the validation of my thinking about PO4 and that wonderful red stuff...
 
I had a similar problem awhile back. How often do you feed Spectrum pellets? I found that it is very high in phosphates. I was feed mostly pelleted foods at the time. I switched to frozen and was able the lower my phosphates ~.02 ppm over a months time. Since than I haven't had a issue
 
Brian - Do you do anything to frozen food before putting it in your tank? Are any of the brands significantly better that others?

Spectrum is marketed as premium food correct?
 
I feed two pinches of spectrum per day. I actually thought my frozen foods were higher in phopshate than the spectrum. I do however believe with all that I am doing to control the phosphates, that since the numbers cant get lower than .03, there must be bound phosphates replacing the phosphate that I am eliminating.
 
What is it "bound" with? I want to make sure I understand what you are saying. I am assuming we are talking rock and sand.

I have same type of thing with Nitrates, very hard to impossible to get to zero.
 
To me bound means precipitated as particulate matter bound to calcium carbonate or bound as part of an organic chain.
 
natural balance/chemistry. Basically osmosis if I understand it correctly. If there is phosphate in the water column, then it will get absorbed onto some of the rock and sand. when there is no more phosphate in the water column, it will leach back out into the water column.


Nitrates do not get bound into rock as I understand it. The only thing that causes long-term nitrate creep is food stuck in the sand bed decomposing over time.
 
The organics break down if they are not skimmed out or removed by gac quickly. Thus the organic phosphate which you don't measure becomes orthophosphate or inorganic phaposhate which you do.

Wether or not precipitated phosphate will redisove is arguable but it is generally thought it does when in low phosphate water.. Exactly how it would redisolve is unclear to me but localized ph variations might contribute.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15367613#post15367613 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tony Romano
Brian - Do you do anything to frozen food before putting it in your tank? Are any of the brands significantly better that others?

Spectrum is marketed as premium food correct?

I just soak it in tank water and feed. As for a better brand here is a link to a food study done

Necessary Nutrition, Foods and Supplements, A Preliminary Investigation
http://web.archive.org/web/20010720.../data/foods.asp
 
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