# How quickly can I raise phosphate?



## j.d (Nov 30, 2014)

Hi guys,

I have been reading posts on this forum for a while. but this is my first post and I would like to say I am glad I have joined this great forum. I am new to the hobby and I hope I can both learn from and contribute to(as much as I understand the hobby) the forum.

About a week ago I found a few Green Spot Algae on my tanks glass. this tank is a relatively new setup(a 10 gallon tank about two month old with ADA Amazonia and Powersand, T5 light, diy co2 and just dosing potassium and Seachem Flourish comprehensive). so I bought a phosphate test kit and phosphate reading was 0. Nitrate was around 12. so I bought some dry kh2po4 and made a liquid fertilizer for phosphorous. 

I want to raise my phosphate level to around 1 ppm.

My question is how quickly can I raise phosphate without risking outbreak of other types of algae.

right now, I am adding 0.1 ppm of phosphate every day. is it safe? can I push it further until I get a reading of 1 ppm phosphate?

thanks


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

If you're reading is 0 then you're plants should be showing deficiency signs, or soon will. I would just fully dose it. The plants have a much larger biomass and require significantly more phosphate than all your algae combined. If it's truly deficient, then I would suspect that the plants would suck it right out of the water. Their capacity to store extra phosphate as a luxury would far outdo the algae. I would think a trickle would be more likely to cause algae than a full dose. The plants would be slowly starving while the algae makes do.


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## j.d (Nov 30, 2014)

Thanks for the advice. 

some plants(Anubias nana) have started to get brown circles on older leaves and another plant (hydrocotyle) has got GSA on older leaves. I think these are signs of phosphate deficiency if I am right.

I think I'll do a water change and then add 1 ppm of phosphate in 12 hr and then test water parameters again.
thank you


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## thunderjack14 (Nov 28, 2014)

I add 3 ml of mono potassium phosphate every other day and it works well for green spot algae all my new leaves on my anubias plants are algae free. Plants are starting to get healthy and out competing the algae. love this kh2po4 great for slow growing plants like anubias.


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## j.d (Nov 30, 2014)

Hi thunderjack and thanks for sharing,

I too use KH2PO4 and after dosing 1 ppm initially, I tested phosphate every day and after a few days I worked out that my plants use about 0.5 ppm of phosphate every day. 

so I just keep my phosphate at around 1 ppm by dosing 0.5 ppm every day.


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