James Ervin wrote in message . ..
On 30 May 2003 20:03:23 GMT, tose (LeighMo) wrote:

Most people with high-light tanks eventually have to supplement phosphate, at
least occasionally. Sounds like your time has come.

Thanks for the info:

It is a 55 tank with 7 Otto's, 6 guppies, 14 molly fry (sort of
fry/fish about 1/2 inch long...the parents jumped ship, literally), 4
guppy fry and a bristle nosed Pleco. There may be some shrimp
left.....but I can't see any now. This seems like a low load to me
(my other tanks have cichlids and have "pounds" of fish in them....big
oscars and Jack's).

So, should I shoot for 2ppm of Phosphate using one of the liquid types
that my LFS has?

2ppm is rather high. If you plan on dosing once every 7-10dyas, this
might be okay.

But it's better to dose perhaps 0.5ppm to 1.0 ppm range. But it's okay
if you run down to .2ppm to 0.0ppm even but not for more than a day or
or so.
You can play around as it has a wide range for effective results.
Also know this about adding PO4: when you start adding this to PO$
limited tank with good CO2, K and traces, your NO3 uptake will
increase a fair amount, 2-4X even.
Also you will be able to dose more traces and may need to increase
both the KNO3 and the Traces when you do this.

But be sure to keep the CO2 at 20-30ppm range, that's a key.

Regards,
Tom Barr






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