Phosphate level
 

What is a good level for phosphates for a planted tank. In my tank it is 1 ppm. Is this too high, too low?
Thanks

I recently asked the same question on another board. I was told that phophates should be 1/10th of the nitrates. So, if you dose your tank to 20ppm nitrates, you should have 2ppm phosphates. This method has nearly irradicated algae in my tank. But you need to be diligent in testing and dosing. And you need to change your water weekly. 50% is what I was told.

Alright, thank you very much

That is pretty much the standard. 10:1 nitrates:phopshates. Anything close works well. I dose 10ppm nitrates and .88ppm phosphates and have never had a problem doing so 3 times a week.

Please expain dosing for Nitrates

Typically no dosing is necessary for nitrates except in very, very heavily planted tanks with few fish.

The normal problem is keeping the nitrate levels low.

I try to keep my nitrate concentration at 20 or less (preferably below 15).

Nitrates are produced by the bacteriological digestion of nitrites.

No method of the reduction of nitrates via bacteriological digestion is commonly available to fish keepers.

The nitrates are only removed from the tank water via water changes or consumption by plants.

TR

You can dose them with anything, it is actually nitrogen that you are dosing. Flourish nitrogen will do it but like Jones said, unless it heavily planted with good lighting you likely will not need to dose them.

I have 3.3 w/g over A 10 gallon and heavily planted is why I dose that high. My nitrates regularly bottomed out which caused BBA and Staghorn Algae.

That's why I was confused!

[/quote]I try to keep my nitrate concentration at 20 or less (preferably below 15).[/quote]

My nitrates normally sit at 5. Do I need to keep them higher for my planted tank? I just added more plants and put liquid fert in the tank Sat thinking it might bring my no4 up to fight the algea. Also what do you use to increase the no4? I looked to see if there was anything on the market but couldn't find anything. It was all to remove no4!

IMHO No. (I am assuming that you have fish in your tank). The probability of plant distress at this concentration is very, very minimal and you will probably have "all the nitrates you want before too long".

Holly:
All liquid fertilizers are not created equal and I am in the process of testing several.
I can currently only recommend Flourish by Seachem.

I wouldn't do this one.

Although not documented to my knowledge IMHO fish are more sensitive to N than other elements in liquid fertilizers and I do not believe an instantaneous increase in nitrates would be beneficial to your fish.

Should decide to try increasing your nitrate concentration you should be able to find Potassium Nitrate (Salt Peter) at your local plant shop.


Two Additional Items

1) The nitrate ion is NO3 and the nitrite ion is NO2.

Nitrate Ion
http://www.fishforum.com/userpix/435_Nitrateion_2.jpg

Nitrite Ion
http://www.fishforum.com/userpix/435_Nitriteion_1.jpg
[/img]

By observation the nitrate ion is more stable than the nitrite ion (which is why compounds thereof are the favorites of our terrorists) and why nitrites are more toxic to fish.


2) Iron

Although not discussed frequently on the forum iron is very essential in the production of chlorophyll.

TR

Sorry I ment increasing my phosphates to fight algea? I've been pretty happy with my nitrites and nitrate levels in the past. They've been pretty consistant. I'm sticking with Flourish also. I normally only use the fert tabs but added some liquid since I bought a bunch of new plants this weekend.