Struggling With High Phosphates Again

[Akasha72]

I'll admit to being scared of it Zante. Even though I trust you ... I don't trust myself not to mess it up and either kill my fish or destroy my cycle and all the problems that would come with a tank slightly over stocked and a failing cycle.
 
I need to give it all some thought. Maybe play around with the remover some more - actually work out how long it lasts, how much is needed to remove the po4 out of the water I change each week.
One thing is for certain, water changing fortnightly doesn't work. It might keep the po4 in check but nitrates them start to get out of control. It feels a bit like walking a tightrope with this tank. One slip and it's off the scale.
 
I may actually look seriously into RO, whether than means doing my water changes with 50% RO and 50% tap so less po4 goes in and so less remover is needed. The bag of remover costs me £15 and it's not a big bag. If I'm going to have to add fresh remover each week it will only last about a month

one option might be to go back to fortnightly water changes but run a nitrate remover sponge. That might be a cheaper option but I need to look in to it first

 

[gmc1]

Well making ro is easy.i have just started with my new tank.i am though only having to make 20 litres a week.i think maybe if you done both would help.i too have to dose to get phosphates away.(I know saltwater is diff).
I think you would need to check that all your stock could handle ro water if you chose to do full tank like that.
One things for sure,your tap water will need to be diluted of phosphates either by using remover dosing or by diluting with ro.

 

[Zante]

It's up to you (obviously), but rest assured that it is very safe. Consider that you're starting with 1 and a half millilitre in a tank of 240 litres. That's a concentration lower than your nitrate levels, and even when you're up to the full dose you still will be dosin less than the nitrates you normally have in there.

 

[Akasha72]

my brain is whizzing with all this now lol
 
I guess what I'm looking for is an easy quick fix but that doesn't seem to exist. If I go RO I'd have to buy from my lfs which is the other end of the town. I'd then have to drag it 20 metres from my car and up a flight of stairs. 
 
If I carry on as I am I'm going to either have to accept high nitrates or high phosphates - trying to balance the two isn't gonna be easy. The remover is also expensive given the amount I'm going to have to use to soak up phosphates of 1.6 -ish
 
In an ideal world someone would create some kind of liquid similar to a dechlorinator to add to my buckets on water change day that would rid the fresh water of the po4 before I add it to the tank. That way the only phosphate created in the tank is coming from foods and that would be taken up by my plants.
 
Of course that would be just too easy right?!
 
I'm still considering the vinegar option Zante. I just want to be certain I'm confident I understand it first

 

[Zante]

 I just want to be certain I'm confident I understand it first

 
Basically the explanation is in my first message. What you're doing adding vinegar is adding a source of organic carbon in the form of acetic acid, which is 5% of the distilled vinegar I mentioned.
 
I'm not sure it'd be usable by the plants as a source of carbon instead of CO2, but I am positive the bacteria will gobble it up happily. The only reason you ramp up the quantities slowly is that if you do it more quickly you might get a bacterial bloom, also rapid changes are always bad in an aquarium.

 

[Akasha72]

so if I start dosing vinegar do I stop putting in my easycarbo?

 

[Zante]

I'd keep it up.

 

[Akasha72]

okay. I want to check I've got this right.
 
So if I can get some vinegar this week I start dropping 1.6ml straight into my tank for 3 days then I increase it to 3.2 and so on. I presume I need to keep checking my po4 and no3 at what point do I stop increasing? Do I wait for the po4 to come down to a safe level and halt the dosing amount there or do I keep increasing? 
 
At the same time I carry on adding my easycarbo and profito and if no3 starts to disappear consider looking for a new fert that contains no3
 
Have I got that right? Trying to keep it simple. I'm not good with things like this and so the simpler the better

 

[Zante]

Pretty much.

 

[Akasha72]

okay, thank you. I'll pop back when I get some vinegar in and start dosing. I'm hoping the 2nd dose of remover will bring it down now for a week but as soon as I water change again in a weeks time I'll be adding back again. I'll keep an eye on the po4 level and once it starts climbing again I'll start the vinegar

 

[jag51186]

I don't know what your funds are like, but I would consider buying an RO unit before purchasing RO water all the time. You could also make this option lead to bucket-less water changes depending on how much you want to spend. Just need a pump in your reservoir that can pump the water to your tank. This is what I'm doing now because I am sick of dealing with the complexities of well water, just have to remineralize it back to the GH and KH you want it at. If you are interested, I could go into the details of the system I will be setting up soon.

 

[Akasha72]

Hi jag, I was looking at the units online this morning but they are a bit pricey and I'm not sure I'd have room for it in this tiny flat.
 
At the moment I'm on a waiting list to move to a ground floor property cos of my health and once that comes about things can change - hopefully for the better all round

 

[gmc1]

42.00 off Amazon akasha.48.00 with 25 litre container.look at my saltwater journal for a look at it.

 

[Akasha72]

just tested the water and the po4 is down to around 0.6 which means it's out of the danger level now. Hopefully it'll be even lower tomorrow

 

[Zante]

In case you're interested I've dosed vinegar for the last three days with my discus, and nothing's happened to anyone
Today is the first dosage step up: 10ml per 400l (ie 0,025mg/l).