Phosphate Phad?

[ReefLady]

Easy there Mike. I'm observing and seeing what shakes out of this before I use it. I found the thread I linked to and found it an interesting addition to the discussion. Maybe I should have said, "warning: anecdotal" but I thought those who read the thread would easily see that was the case.

As for "if it ain't broke don't fix it," there is a degree of truth to that. I could argue the tire metaphor, and say the baldness of the tire is a sign of a potential problem that would call for action, but I think the metaphor would be beaten and bloodied pretty quickly. I'm actually surprised to see you landing on the side of constantly running a PO4 sponge, but I hold you in the highest regard, and if you feel there will be no long-term issues, well, that's a heck of an argument right there. I'll still come to my own conclusion, and right now that conclusion is to watch and see what shakes out of this long-term.

Nikki, my sandbed was very problematic. Leaching PO4. A large part of the problem was that I didn't care for it properly, but when I set it up I had no idea of the care it needed and the potential problems. Shame on me for diving in before I understood something fully.

T

 

[Maxx]

I'm not trying to turn this into a BB/DSB discussion at all.

I think ya might have misunderstood me Nikki......I'm deep in the process of getting the new tank set up BB. I just didnt want my bias' to show.

On a reactor with RP running fl time. If thier is no available IP then it will just sit thier and do nothing, as IP is added to the tank the RP has an oppurtunity to remove it. I see nothing wrong with using it full time on an old or new system.

Mike, this is what I was waiting to hear. You have to realize Mike, just cause you knew about something 20 years ago doesnt mean the rest of us here, (Midwest runs a little slower than the coasts ya know!) have it figured out yet.

As per iron leeching, what makes you assume that is happening?? is the ferric oxide soluable?? are you making it soluable??

No idea.....How do you make FO soluable?

Thier are a couple of things that kind of grow old in this hobby. One is the line "If it aint broke dont fix it" that one kind of kills me, lol. I have never been a big fan of watching a problem develop then waiting until its to late.

Ahh, wait a minute, thats not how I interpret that saying. There's a difference between messing w/ success, and watching things slowly crash. If the problem exists.....it needs to be fixed. I have been curious to see how this will fix this particular issue, or how it will help in dealing w/ this particular issue.

Is it a miricle cure, nope but it is an effective way to remove IP from your system.

Okay, now I've admitted that chemistry was a great nap time type class for me, (it kills me that my mother was right when she said I might need to know this stuff some day!!!! ), but if I'm understanding you correctly, there are two types of phosphate...Inorganic Phosphate, (IP) and Organic Phosphate, (OP). If I understand further, OP is taking up by organisms in the biotope/aquarium, and IP is not. Is there a bigger difference? Are they really two totally different types of phosphate? How does using a P filter affect/deal w/ OP?
Nick

 

[mojoreef]

No aggression ment folks, just yammering.

Travis watching and observing prior to trying is the best way to go about things, nothing wrong with that. On the RC thread I guess my age on these boards is showing. I have seen so many folks blame so many things on stuff its unreal. I remember a guy asking me how to make blender mush on the RAG the next day he started a thread called "Mojo's blender mush killed my coral" turned out that he washed the blender with antibacterial soap, and didnt rince to well. So I guess I get a little tainted when I see threads like that, no biggie.
RP is just highly refined FO. it has been in use for decades in drinking water systems and sanitation plants both her and in europe. It also has been very popluar in public aquariums for quite a while to. It has gained exposure and thus is more available because of a reefer in england name John Saxby. He owns a large aquarium (around a 1000g I believe) but has over 500 fish in it and has had it up and running for a very long time. He did a big article in one of the more popular mags.

Mike, this is what I was waiting to hear. You have to realize Mike, just cause you knew about something 20 years ago doesnt mean the rest of us here, (Midwest runs a little slower than the coasts ya know!) have it figured out yet.

Oh I didnt know much 20 years ago brother, lol and most of the stuff in the hobby back then was not worth remembering, heheh

Ahh, wait a minute, thats not how I interpret that saying. There's a difference between messing w/ success, and watching things slowly crash. If the problem exists.....it needs to be fixed. I have been curious to see how this will fix this particular issue, or how it will help in dealing w/ this particular issue

Ok Nick lets dig a little deeper on that. What tank that you know of that could not benefit from a fix at any given time? all tanks are in a state of decay upon thier setup, if you dont tweek and/or modify to fix the given situation your heading for a problem.
On the RP again it is one (small one) part of the overall battle in the control of the one true limiting factor in our systems (phosphate).

mike

 

[mojoreef]

Ok let me see if I can explain P with out screwing it up to much.
First lets look at the types (with out going to deep and getting into strains).
Dissolved inorganic phoshorus
Is biologically available and essential to plants and algae. It is mostly dissolved phosphates. It enters the aquarium from tap water, sometimes from water treatments like pH buffers, it is wasted through the gills and kidneys of animals, it comes on seafood as a wash/enhancer, on food as perservatives, In our salt mixes and is
produced in aquariums from organic phosphorus by bacterial and algal
phosphatase activity. It is converted to particulate inorganic phosphorus
by sorption and precipitation.

Particulate inorganic phoshorus
Is mostly not biologically available. It is phosphate associated with phosphate minerals and adsorbed on metal hydroxides and other solids in the aquarium. It enters the aquarium mostly in fish food and animal feces and it can be removed by siphoning out detritus and cleaning filter media. It also enters our tanks by adding argonite sand and LR.It is formed within an aquarium by sorption and precipitation of dissolved inorganic phosphorus.

Dissolved organic phosphorus
Is biologically available to bacteria and possibly to algae. It enters the aquarium from animal waste. Bacterial and algal phosphatase activity convert dissolved organic phosphorus to phosphates.

Particulate organic phosphorus
Isn't available to plants and algae, but is available to animals. It enters the aquarium as plant detritus, fish food and feces. It can be removed by siphoning and filter cleaning. It is converted to dissolved phosphates by phosphatase activity. The phosphatase activity is partly due to detritivores but also to bacteria and possibly algae.

Mike

 

[mojoreef]

OK part 2. what does it do when its in thier

when available P enters the tank, bacteria are the first inline, they immediatly go after it. Now bacteria just cant eat it they have to create a liquid soup (for lack of a better word) with in this soup they can disovle and store P and use it. When they do this they allow for the growth of more bacteria and thus more of this bacterial bile. It just keeps growing and growing. Now these bacteria and thier bile are covering all surfaces of our reef tanks, from rocks to sand to power heads. Anything that maybe percipated out of the water column (say such as kalk and P) will not make it past this biofilm of bacteria and bile. they need it and want it and not much will stop them. So even if its percipatated as a solid it will be broken down with in hours.
Ok so this is happening everywhere in our tanks constantly. In the rocks this is also the case. the bacteria continue to mass and to create more of this biomass with in the rock, as it masses it begins to move to the outer surfaces of the rock, we call this bacterial tugur. Once it reaches the surface of the rock it begins to shed off, most folks call it detritus, it is actual bacterial flock (died bacteria, bacterial shells, unused organics, particulate dust, and bacteria fuilds) it is also heavier then water so it will sink once blown free on the surface, if not blown of it will become food for algae (usually). This process is a constant 24/7/365 type of thing.
Ok in sand beds, Same concept with one BIG exception. With the population growth of the bacteria and the soup it uses and needs in which to live it also pushes out and up. The problem is that our tanks have side walls and a bottom, so when that is hit it pushes in the only direction left...UP. As time goes by this mass of bacteria, soup and all of the above begins to reach the surface. Once thier it will begin to leech into the aquarium. Now this P in all its forms and conditions is still trapped with in its biofilm and not available to our test kits (well some of it is but only if you draw the sample form the bed) Once on the surface it will become available to higher organisms such as algae. Cyano first them the more common types including hair algae. Since the sand is not a fixed thing this means that it will not all come up at once, first over here, then thier, then all over the damm place. then all over everything.
A sand bed has no method for dealing with it, so it doesnt matter how well set up the thing is, it does not work biologically. What its will do through the above mentioned processes is to facilatate it to be removed. Translated= it will bring the available P to the surface where it will be converted to OP by absobtion into the tissue of algae from which you can harvest. Read between the lines of the dsb experts, they even say that themselves.

Mike

 

[mojoreef]

Part 3 How do we deal with them.

Ok once we have an understanding of them as above we can try to fight them where we can. Also we can see that thier is not going to be one way to do it, we must battle them on alot of different fronts. So lets take a peek.

INput:
A great start, we use ro/di to stop ortho P from entering that way. We rince our seafood mush in ro to rid ouselves of the wash used to perserve seafood. We watch which salt mix we use as some contain large ammounts. We stop using foods that contain high ammounts (frozen cube foods, and flake). the use of carbon that is washed in P. Maybe the sand that is used in dsb (ok I had to throw that one in, lol)

Ok even though we do all that we are not going to beat it. it will still enter and or be produced. So what next. Lets go back to its forms.
Organic= bound up in bacteria and algae or associated with extra food/detritus (as i bacteria are on it and eating it and creating thier soup). So if we remove this stuff we remove it in many forms, Particulate inorganic P (ie: microscopic argonite dust tha thas attached to organics) Particulate organic P (ie the food or waste blob, baterial soup, bacterial floc and so on) Disolved organic P (more parts of the soup and enzynes used by bacteria and or P that is in transistion) organic P (the little bast*** bacteria and cyanos that are loaded with it) .....by simply syphoning/skimming/socking and whatever from the tank directly prior to it entering into any cycles.
Next would be for the dsb folks do as much of the above as you can including input, and then just harvest the algae once it begins to form. other then that pretty much the same concepts.
Ok so lets bring this back to the original posting Ferric Oxide (RP) at certain point in the P cycling and all the other processes listed previously, thier are points where the P is inorganic and available. this is where a product such as RP can come into play. At certain points (say when IP first enters the tank, or it is unbound by bacteria and not used or not needed as thier populatio is in a state fo flux) RP can act as an absorbant to remove it. So....just one small part of the over all battle against Phophate saturation.


Anyway Clear as mud now??????


lol


Mike

 

[ReefLady]

Thanks Mike. Looks like we dragged it out of you finally.

 

[mojoreef]

Dog

 

[middletonmark]

Nice Thanks Mike.

I think I might have said the `if it ain't broke' and I know what you mean. Anything that is starting to function incorrectly is broke ... it's not a `watch disaster happen' saying. Or so I meant. But isn't there a point to where endless tweaking, ceasless messing with the tank is ill advised?

IMO, the [as you pointed out] few cases all did have a couple things going. I mean, beyond the Interceptor, Flatworm Exit, and introduction of RP ... what else happened to that tank. In two months, that's a lot of stuff going on in the tank, or is to me.

Maybe I shoulda said `if you just messed with the tank bigtime, don't mess with the tank's chemistry again soon'. Overall, maybe the tank has `better' levels now, but yet maybe the corals were just too stressed too often by all the messing with the tank. [which leads me to believe that RP use was for `tweaking' purposes only ... maybe wisely used, but ill timed IMO].

I ramble too much, probably just talked myself into trouble again

--

But you're right about removing phosphates, in `any means necessary'.

 

[Maxx]

Okay, it begins to make sense now. So at some point in time, the phosphate will be in a form that can be absorbed by RP? Not all at once, but some point in its various cycles and incarnations....
okay, which means that RP use in conjunction w/ limiting phosphate entry into the tank, and regular maintenance , (turkey basting rockwork, siphoning detritus, regular water changes etc)we can severely reduce the overall amount of phosphate in the tank. Which in turn makes the tank healthier overall.
That sound about right Mike?
Nick

 

[sharks]

WOW awesome and informative posts there Mike!
That is the clearest explanation I have seen yet.
Well at least in laymen terms which is what I need LOL
Karma and Thanks Bud
S

 

[mojoreef]

LOL Mark I know where your coming from. Constant tinkering isnt good either. The common ground is keeping stuff healthy, the best way to keep stuff healthy is to concentrate on water quality. How far and how much you do make that happen will ultimately make or break your tank.

Nick looks good to me.

Glad it helped sharky


Mike

 

[ReefLady]

Article by Richard Harker on Rowaphos and Phosban...

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/june2004/review.htm

 

[Maxx]

Interesting....
If you notice, in the first graph, Phosban actually lowers phosphate levels more steadily and maintains the lower level better than RowaPhos...
I'd like to see a test that spanned longer than 8 hours though.
And I'm not so wild about the PH hit......things to think about....
Thanks for the link Travis,
Nick