New article of mine on phosphate

[tmz]

Lots of fresh seafood prepared for humans uses phospahte as a preservative though,IIRC.

 

[tmz]

Imo its takes plants, not animals, to bind phosphate or we can utilize precipitations to make it unavailable to algae, but dsb animals won't impact phosphates in the way we want. awaiting input from Randy....

Randy hasn't been around for a while. In the meantime , I'll take a shot. Bacteria and all other other organisms use inorganic phospha te for phospholipids in membranes ,dna, etc. Some is also bound in skeletal matter in seashells stony corals and sclerites in soft corals. So, yes dsb animals would use PO4. How much vs specific types algae is unknown but many tanks with fresh sand beds do ok with PO4 levels. Also, those that dose organic carbon,including me, find the bacteria cultured with this method reduce PO4 quite well and the bacteria in turn are either consumed by other organisms or skimmed out/ just ike macroalgea is harvested out.

 

[LeLutinBanni]

This is crazy...Nice article

 

[fortress]

I have never tested my RODI water for anything (I might now). If it contained phosphates and I slack a dy or two between top offs am I creating a spike? Some days I will use as much as 5 gallons of top off in my fuge. I have observed a reaction by a recently added Daisy coral...thought it was due to the somewhat drastic brackish mix. Both incentives to automate

 

[bertoni]

You might see a bit of a spike if your topoff water has a lot of phosphate. I might measure the phosphate level in the RO/DI. Most kits will work on fresh water.

 

[GPB]

Really good stuff. Thanks.