Phos zorb in planted tank?

[Hawaii Predator]

Okay, so I got a rena phos zorb laying around my supplies and i was wondering if it can be used in a planted setup and also with the activated carbon? Its a newbie question, but i need an answer cause im cleaning my tank right now and I have my xp4 sitting there waiting.

 

[Riiz]

You dont wanna put Phos Zorb in a planted tank, phosphorous is a major element in plant health. Activated carbon is fine, but is basically pointless if you keep up on water changes. It still has it uses, for example removing fish meds or the yellowing tannins that are released from wood.

 

[Hawaii Predator]

You dont wanna put Phos Zorb in a planted tank, phosphorous is a major element in plant health. Activated carbon is fine, but is basically pointless if you keep up on water changes. It still has it uses, for example removing fish meds or the yellowing tannins that are released from wood.

thanks for the response. yeah, thats what I use the carbon for , to take out the tannins from my driftwood branches in my tank. Ill remember that. I did some research before starting this thread and nothing came up on phos zorb. ive read that there are different kinds of phosphorus and some are harmful to plants in excess amounts. i guess the phos zorb removes all of it then. ill just save it for my future reef tank.

 

[plantbrain]

PO4 is never harmful to plants in even extremely high cases.
I'm talking 100ppm. Typical ranges for tap are 0 to 1, maybe 2ppm if it's really rich. So you have no demand for removing it, plants can remove 1-2 ppm a week.

Farmers lard N and P on the fields. I know of no studies that show PO4 is toxic or harmful to plants until you add so much you start to see salinity toxicity. Which is very very high.

Who ever or where ever you got that info, I'd look elsewhere from now on.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[coach_z]

Tom - so no PO4 level for plants, but how about maximum PO4 levels for fish?

 

[plantbrain]

Tom - so no PO4 level for plants, but how about maximum PO4 levels for fish?

There is no standard for PO4 toxicity for fish, it's used like most any salt, and can be toxic based on the salinity, rather than say acute toxicity like with Copper which cross links disulfide bridges and oxidizes various enzymes and membranes.

PO4 got a bad name from algae blooms where no plants are present.
If you have plants growing in moderately to high abundance, adding PO4 = more plants.

The weed growth or algae bloom, can have indirect effects on fish by reducing, eliminating O2, particularly if they all start dying off and release large amoutn sof decompsoed plant or algae matter into the water. That is consumed by bacteria, which suck out all the O2.

Lack of O2 is what causes the fish kills typically.
A few species of algae release chemicals that can kill fish etc, but no plants do this.

pH buffers are often made from PO4 based products that target less than 7.0pH. pH down is H3PO4 (30%)for example, or it use to be. Salts of PO4 are used for a number of uses.

Soaps no longer uses it make it sud up however due to water quality concerns.

NO3 is also fairly non toxic, but if you load the same NH4, it's extremely toxic, so if you start with dosing KNO3, that is very different than loading with fish waste and NH4(typically the case with aquarist/fish only advice).

I've yet to have met anyone that's killed any fish/shrimp with KH2PO4 and KNO3.

Folks kill fish and shrimp all the time, at least weekly on the forums (mis)using CO2 gas. But few give that a bad name like PO4/NO3.

Never understood that one.

Regards,
Tom barr

 

[coach_z]

good to know...thanks tom!

 

[SubRosa]

Where PO4 causes real roblems is in reef tanks where it inhibits the formation of calcium carbonate by stony corals. In FW a bloom of undesirable algae could harm the plants if you let them get covered and don't do anything to clean them off, and die-off is a potential problem,but other than that it's a cosmetic issue.

 

[plantbrain]

Where PO4 causes real roblems is in reef tanks where it inhibits the formation of calcium carbonate by stony corals. In FW a bloom of undesirable algae could harm the plants if you let them get covered and don't do anything to clean them off, and die-off is a potential problem,but other than that it's a cosmetic issue.

But it's not due to excess(say 0.1ppm to 10ppm of PO4, a pretty wide range I'd say) in the water column that causes algae in planted tanks.

For marine planted tanks, the ranges is much tighter, about 0.05ppm to about 0.4ppm of PO4. Much more than 0.4ppm and we get diatom blooms on the macro algae. If you run a good refugium for a reef, and keep the loading rates stable, then you can have higher PO4 than you think.

Problem is, many folks cannot keep their loading rates stable, so they just try and scrub all the PO4 out they can. If the refuge is well managed, then it's not an issue. Skimmer/PO4 removal is easier for many.

Both work however.

I do not think PO4 prevents formation of CaCO3 in coral at the suggested levels for reef marine systems(say 0.2ppm or less), however, this is a FW plant forum. Nowhere near as sensitive, you add more PO4, you get more plants.

regards,
Tom Barr