View Full Version : Oops! Water changes, here I come...
I'm not sure what the heck happened last night. I got a couple of new plants, tested my water, and dosed some ferts. When I got my plants, I also picked up some more test kits: NO3, PO4, FE. The PO4 test kit (Dry-Tab), showed that I had no phosphates. I have never had to dose for PO4 before...so to double check, I got online, came here and looked up some phosphate posts. I think len said that 1 drop of fleet enema would raise the phosphate level of a 30g tank by .25. Since I have a 150, I thought, lets be conservative...I've never done this before...so I added 5 drops, thinking that in the morning I'd see a minimal change...<<<WRONG>>>....I just tested my parameters and now my phosphates are showing to be around 6-8!!! How could 5 drops of fleet enema do this to a 150 gallon tank. Anyway, disgruntled water changes are a happening today.
Tempest
03-06-2004, 10:09 AM
I'd say something was screwy cause it shouldn't do that. :) I'd retest.. Also retest plain tap water and put a drop in a quart of tap water and test that too.
djlen
03-06-2004, 11:10 AM
You've either got an inaccurate test kit or mis-read it.
When I'm trying to find out what it takes to raise P to between .5 and 1.0 in a particular tank, I dose 4 drops and wait and hour or so and test again.
This is in tanks of 40 gal. and up. For my 10, when I was testing, I used 1 drop at a time.
I've never said that one drop of it would raise P by .25 in a 30 gal. tank. Plain and simple.......it won't.
I have been using a Hagen Phosphate Test Kit for quite a while and while not perfectly accurate, it's close enough for me.
I've never had much confidence in those 'dry-tab' testers.
Len
Jamie
03-06-2004, 11:34 AM
After reading so many posts about dosing for phosphate and seeing so many replies from you, I mixed up with who said the 1 drop of fleet will raise 30 gal by .25...it was aquafreak in this post.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11794&highlight=dosing+fleet
With all respect to aquafreak, that has not been the case in my experience.
Start slow....dose and test....dose and test. But think you'll find that it takes considerably more than one drop to raise the P level by .25ppm.
You might want to look into a better tester as well.
Speaking of testers. I have found that many of them are not particularly accurate except some of the LaMotte kits. But I use them as a reference tool to keep some type of consistency in my dosing regime. If, for instance a kit reads 1.0 and is off by .25, who cares as long as the color it produces is the one that gives me the amount of PO4 that works in my tank. I shoot for that color on a consistent basis whether what I'm dosing is yielding .75ppm or 1.0, or 1.25. Immaterial to me.
Then, after trial and error, if I find that I need to dose 2 drops a day or 8 drops/twice a week....that's what the tank gets.
Hope this is clear for you.
Len
I just finished a 50% water change and used every test kit that I have. I figured I'd share my results. I listed the manufacturer of the test kits for the heck of it. Right now I am trying out Flourish Excel. I am not injecting CO2 right now, so the CO2 content can't be computed the KH/pH way. Any comments on my water parameters are more than welcome.
pH : 7.0 (Aquarium Pharm)
GH : 5 degrees (Aquarium Pharm)
KH : 2 degrees (Aquarium Pharm)
NH4 : 0 (Aquarium Pharm)
NO2 : 0 (Aquarium Pharm and Hagen)
NO3 : I have two test kits, and the results varied greatly between the two of them. My Hagen test kit says that it is around 5 ppm. The Tetra Test kit says it's at 20 ppm! With the addition of Spectracide Stump Remover, I expected it to be around 10 ppm. So which one's right...I don't know.
K : I don't have a tester for this but according to Chuck's, I should have about 15- 20 ppm
PO4 : The Dry-Tab test kit isn't even giving me a color that is on the chart. I just got it yesterday and I think I'm gonna return it (even though I've already used it 4 times in 1 day). It just seems so inconsistant. For kicks I added a drop of fleet to the test tube to see what would happen and it pegged the scale...so I guess it's working somewhat. Luckily I have a Seachem PO4 test kit and it is showing about .5 ppm.
Fe : I just got this Hagen test kit yesterday too. It tests for free iron and chelated iron. Currently, my iron content is not showing up...I just dosed Flourish this morning though. I took a little bit of Flourish and put it in the test tube to see if the test kit would pick up the iron content and sure enough, it went off the chart. Maybe I'm just lacking it in my tank right now. I ordered some Floursh Iron the other day and it should be here soon.
Most Fe test kits are, at best, undependable. I've even heard people who used the LaMotte kit complain about accuracy.
Fe is also a Micro that many people don't need to dose, especially if they use a good, all purpose Trace mix like Flourish or Plantex.
Certain plants do benefit greatly from a small daily dosing of extra Fe.
If you do use it, use it sparingly and watch for additional algae growth(especially the glass algae).
My Cryptocorynes are, to my eye, the only plants that benefit tremendously from the additional Fe that I dose, but I have so many of them it's definitely worth it to me, to dose it regularly.
Len