planted tank needs?

[superjalami30]

I was wondering if my planted tanks "need" phosphate's?
At the moment my phosphates are 10ppm, too high from what i've been told.
Should I remove all of the phosphate, or leave a small amount in the tank?
My tank is stocked with fish, and heavily planted.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=93689

 

[iggy01]

That's a nice heavily planted tank!

If you aren't having any major problems with algae and are getting good growth, I wouldn't bother messing about with phosphate removers etc.

Do you know the phosphate level of your tap water? You could always reduce your phosphate level by doing bigger and more frequent water changes.

Good luck!

 

[superjalami30]

Thanks, I've had fun with planting my tanks!

I had my tap water tested at the lfs and it was zero ppm.
I need to buy my own phosphate test kit!
Anyways, I have a very small amount of green spot algae....good thing, and a bit of a hair algae prob, the kind that looks like black stringy hairs (I wont even say what kind of hair I think it looks like) lol
My shrimp and siamese flying fox's are taking care of it, and the addition of potassium nitrate and potassium sulfate seems to be keeping it down.


To be honest, the only reason I want to ger rid of the phosphate is 'cause the lfs said it could kill my fish at those levels.
Everything I've read says nothing about phosphate killing fish, they all say its non toxic.
What is it?
toxic or non toxic?
Should/do I have to remove it?

I am having success growing my plants, but will leaving it in the tank cause a long term problem?
I'm a firm believer in "if it aint broke dont fix it"........unless it gonna break, so fix it seems the better idea, but at this point, I have no idea.

 

[iggy01]

I had my tap water tested at the lfs and it was zero ppm.
I need to buy my own phosphate test kit!


To be honest, the only reason I want to ger rid of the phosphate is 'cause the lfs said it could kill my fish at those levels.
Everything I've read says nothing about phosphate killing fish, they all say its non toxic.
What is it?
toxic or non toxic?
Should/do I have to remove it?

I've never heard of phosphate killing fish.

But what would worry me is the difference between the phosphate level in your tap water compared to the tank water. A difference of 10 mg/l is quite a lot.

Could you be overfeeding? Or do you use any pH buffers?

How much water do you change and how often?

 

[superjalami30]

I'm think I know where the phosphates are coming from.
A combination of decomposing plants matter (most of which I try to get out, but theres alot of plants in that tank) and nutrafin plant sticks.

I think I have too many of these plant sticks in the tank(I completely forgot I even had em in there) so I took most of em out last week.
I'm getting my phosphates tested again this afternoon and we will see if they've gone down at all.
As for water changes, I do one 10-15% change every week in all my tanks.
I dont overfeed, I fast all my fish once a week, usually the same day I change the water, and I routinely take out most of the decaying plant matter each day.

So, if my phosphates are still way high today I'll have to start looking at other possible causes.

 

[iggy01]

Looks like you may have found the cause.

It may take a few weeks to see a noticeable difference in phosphate levels with 10 -15 % weekly water changes though.

I think you may have to keep an eye on your phosphate levels anyway. With 0 mg/l in your tap water, you may have to start dosing phosphate as well.

Good luck!

 

[superjalami30]

LOL
from one extreme to the next!
I actually have a phosphate fert, so I'll be good to go when and if my phos gets to 0ppm
Thanks iggy01!