[Dave.I]

Hi guy's!

Was talking with Linds the other day about the d&d phosphate kit and how to read it correctly.I tested there shop system and it showed exactly the same result as my own system being a very pale light yellow.Its lighter than anything on the chart and only realy noticable when you put both samples over a white background.Now,according to there chart this means its lower than there scale reads meaning it must be somewere between 0.008 and 0.

Is this reading considered too low?

What reading do YOU personaly get?

Are we reading it correctly?

Do we all worry too much about phosphate levels being too low or too high?

I was talking to Linds about how maybe our corals/systems are consuming phosphates,nitrates etc at a rate that meets there needs but leaves no real surplus to show on a test kit.What are your thought on this?

Many thanks!

Dave

[Crabbit]

Personally I don't worry about phosphate to much. I run a reactor but I don't tend to test it with different test kits trying and get a low reading on all of the kits. This is mainly because I would be worried about my corals going without and my refugium crashing. If you think about the basics of a refugium algae uses it as a food source, some of our corals grown a type of algae as their food source. So the coral will use some of the phosphate to help it grow their food. I normally get a result of under 0.03 and in the many aquariums I have kept over the years I have had it a lot worse to no major ill effects. My growth rates are good and all in all I have been happy with everything. If you get it to low how will you put in back in to save your refugium? Have you had problems before related to phosphates?

[Dave.I]

Hi Crabbit.No never had any problems with phosphates.We were just wondering what peoples thoughts are on good levels and there opinions on the test results.I would like to know if there is a level that is too low and if there is a figure we should aim for.
I think it would be good if someone was going on holiday to a reef and took a d&d kit with them! I know we can get the figures from other sources but we dont know what results OUR test kits would give in a natural environment,that would be interesting!
Oh,i dont run an algae bed.

Dave

[Crabbit]

I am planning on trying to grow out some corals to a large scale compared to what I have done before. I am also hoping that Nitrate and Phosphate are going to help me along the way. I reckon that when a corals become large that it will use a lot of it to help it grow. That is why I fear that if to low in some cases it things might start to suffer. But it is easily corrected add another fish. It would be interesting but I have always wondered in some grown out thanks how much is removed by corals, clams etc? With your new dosing pumps you might be able to tell me before I get there

[lindsay]

Thanks for testing the sps system the other day Dave .As you found it seems to be reading lower than 0.008 even though it gets 7 to 8 blocks of frozen fish food and Salifert coral food daily .I would think that this amount of food will be putting some usable phosphate into the system for the corals to use but i think that a reading of 0.008 to 0.010 would be better than below 0.008 especially as the nitrate test is also reading as 0 with no colour change .