jsiegmund
Member
I have a bit of an issue getting the phosphate level in my tank to decent values and I want to understand why. I am using a drop test to monitor the values and although there is sometimes a hint of blue in the water, I can't get it to show a real blue color which it should be.
This seems to be the case since I switched to Akadama. I read these soils might take up some PO4 in the begin period, but I've got it for several months (4) now, and there's still nothing happening. At the moment, I'm dosing 6 ppm / week and just upped that to nearly 10 just to see what will happen.
Why change it at all? I think it's whats causing poor plant growth in my tank. Some plant species like pogostemon helferi and bacopa sp japan are struggling. Lower leaves are melting and algae are always present (BBA, hair, green spot). Of course there are other factors like CO2, nutrients and light but I do believe I have those under control, at least well enough. Other plant species are doing better (blyxa, enchinodorus tenellus, eleocharis parvula and others) so that leads me to think that stuff like light and CO2 is at least well enough.
So if I want to get PO4 up to something like 0.5 or 1, I just keep adding the dose until something happens, or are there other factors to take into account? I'm dosing a PO4 stock solution made with powder from a local supplier, I know pretty sure it's ok. One drop in my test solution and it turns blue almost instantly.
If it is the Akadama, from what I read the roots of the plants should be able to use still use it. Especially the pogostemon has thick roots which seem to be ankers more than meant for uptake. Could this be why it is doing a bad job taking in PO4? Just trying to find some reasonable explanations here 🙂
This seems to be the case since I switched to Akadama. I read these soils might take up some PO4 in the begin period, but I've got it for several months (4) now, and there's still nothing happening. At the moment, I'm dosing 6 ppm / week and just upped that to nearly 10 just to see what will happen.
Why change it at all? I think it's whats causing poor plant growth in my tank. Some plant species like pogostemon helferi and bacopa sp japan are struggling. Lower leaves are melting and algae are always present (BBA, hair, green spot). Of course there are other factors like CO2, nutrients and light but I do believe I have those under control, at least well enough. Other plant species are doing better (blyxa, enchinodorus tenellus, eleocharis parvula and others) so that leads me to think that stuff like light and CO2 is at least well enough.
So if I want to get PO4 up to something like 0.5 or 1, I just keep adding the dose until something happens, or are there other factors to take into account? I'm dosing a PO4 stock solution made with powder from a local supplier, I know pretty sure it's ok. One drop in my test solution and it turns blue almost instantly.
If it is the Akadama, from what I read the roots of the plants should be able to use still use it. Especially the pogostemon has thick roots which seem to be ankers more than meant for uptake. Could this be why it is doing a bad job taking in PO4? Just trying to find some reasonable explanations here 🙂