W Churchill
Member
My tank (400 L) is only about 6 months old and so far amongst other goodish readings my nitrite has been somewhere between 0 and 0.02 ppm and my phosphate has been 0, today my nitrite is 0.05 ppm and my phosphate is almost 0.1 ppm.
I'm sort of thinking my nitrite might be because I've just added 15 shrimp on Friday, I added 10 a few days before that but they died (stocking shipment - nearly dead on arrival) and only had 5 small fish before hand, but am mentioning it in case it's relevant to my phosphate level.
I've now changed my phosphate remover and assume (hope) it will start to go down, but my phosphate remover dosage has always kept it at zero before, so I'm not sure why I have a problem now.
The only thing I can think of and I might be thinking nonsense (but I'd rather look silly, than damage my stock) is that I'd just cleaned my tank. My tank hasn't quite got through the algae bloom stage and I'd been cleaning it once a week but left it about 18 days this time (except front glass).
So my question is can a good clean especially when there is a bit more algae than usual release phosphate or do I need to look for another cause.
I'm sort of thinking my nitrite might be because I've just added 15 shrimp on Friday, I added 10 a few days before that but they died (stocking shipment - nearly dead on arrival) and only had 5 small fish before hand, but am mentioning it in case it's relevant to my phosphate level.
I've now changed my phosphate remover and assume (hope) it will start to go down, but my phosphate remover dosage has always kept it at zero before, so I'm not sure why I have a problem now.
The only thing I can think of and I might be thinking nonsense (but I'd rather look silly, than damage my stock) is that I'd just cleaned my tank. My tank hasn't quite got through the algae bloom stage and I'd been cleaning it once a week but left it about 18 days this time (except front glass).
So my question is can a good clean especially when there is a bit more algae than usual release phosphate or do I need to look for another cause.