kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

You reminded me if one surprising result. When I tested my tap water for phosphates it came up zero!! Everyone is always freaked out about the phosphate content of tap water.. Why? I know that there is a lot of other junk in our tap water, hence my TDS reading of 214 but apparently phosphate is not among them. And yes I do realize that not all tap water is created equal.

Also, I am not surprised but I am disappointed that my nori had quite a bit of phosphate. Mainly because nori tends to not get consumed right away so there is plenty of time for it to leech it's phosphates unlike the other foods that typically get eaten immediately.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by kien

You reminded me if one surprising result. When I tested my tap water for phosphates it came up zero!! Everyone is always freaked out about the phosphate content of tap water.. Why? I know that there is a lot of other junk in our tap water, hence my TDS reading of 214 but apparently phosphate is not among them. And yes I do realize that not all tap water is created equal.

Also, I am not surprised but I am disappointed that my nori had quite a bit of phosphate. Mainly because nori tends to not get consumed right away so there is plenty of time for it to leech it's phosphates unlike the other foods that typically get eaten immediately.

not much phosphate in our taps.....but test the water below the outflow of the treatment facilities on the Bow......its what makes the Bow the blue ribbon fishery that it is......phosphate grows weeds.....which grows bugs.....which grows trout

[Delphinus]

This is my understanding. Might be a bit oversimplified but as far as I know it's more or less correct still:

There is phosphates in everything, it's not going to be possible to get away from phosphates. It is like other things however, including NO3, in that there is some uptake by organisms so there will be some minor fluctuations in the levels from one day to the next however it is usually a given that we tend to input more than a tank is able to uptake and thus there is a residual value which usually creeps up in the absence of a PO4 reduction mechanism (eg. algae, refugium, ULNS, GFO, kalk, etc.) Some phosphate is necessary for growth, although too high a value inhibits calcification and thus inhibits coral growth or encourages tissue recession.

Anyhow that said, phosphate is not just phosphate, there is inorganic phosphate and organic phosphate. Of interest to us is organic phosphate, but you can only test for inorganic phosphate. Generally speaking we assume that the level of organic phosphate is around the same as inorganic phosphate, but that may not always be the case.

I remember reading that if you boil a water sample for some period of time and then test for phosphate, you will get a different value for before and after, because the organic phosphate denatures into inorganic during boiling.

Having said that however, that may not be the explanation for the tapwater producing a zero value. Drinking water standards dictate acceptable levels for many different parameters and AFAIK, nitrates and phosphates are to be zero (or very close to zero), and municipalities are thus mandated to provide water as such. I remember there was a big thing in the news about some small town had to provide bottled water because the tapwater had a detectable level of nitrate.

I could be wrong but that's what I always thought anyhow.

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by kien

...
This is a "skyberry" stag which is normally a baby blue that had completely browned out during the event. As you can see it has regained much of its colour. ...

Interesting that one coral "browned out" while others were dying off.

Browning is a typical sign of high nutrients, isn't it?
Perhaps the mucus secretion from your LPS and soft corals had increased suddenly for some reason leading to a high level of dissolved organics, plus some added chemical warfare happening at the same time.

Were you adding any corals shortly before that "event" or fragging anything?

Mitch

[BlueTang<3]

Originally Posted by kien

After using the Hana Phosphate checker I discovered that my phosphates were a lot higher than I thought they were. Using other (conventional) test kits I have a hard time distinguishing the low level colour gradients near zero. With the Hana I get an exact digital reading, cool! After a few rounds (quite a bit of trial and error) with the Hana meter I think I have the process down. One thing I learned is that there are quite a few things that can throw the meter off. Finger prints, bubbles in the cuvette, not using all the reagent (some of it ends up on the counter or stuck in the corners of its packet.. grrr!). Anyway, after seeing that my phosphate was non-zero and was actually 0.16 I started to scratch my head and wonder exactly where the phosphates were coming from. Yes, I know we introduce phosphates through various foods that we throw into our tanks but what I was really curious about was who was the greatest offender. So today I set out to answer this question and here's how it went down.

For every food product that I feed my fish I scooped up 1 teaspoons worth and dumped it into a bowl of 1/4 cup of RO/DI water.





I then let the food sit all day to leech out all its phosphorus goodness.



Top Left: Nori sheet (from Superstore)
Top Middle: Formula 1 Flakes
Top Right: Formula 1 pellets
Bottom Left: My homemade fish mush
Bottom Right: PE Misys (unrinsed)

After a few hours ( like 10 or 11 i think ) I began the testing. For each food item I purcolated the mixture to get as much fluid as possible.



I tried to test this solution but it was way too concentrated so I had to dilute it. Instead, I drew up 2 mils of each fluid and diluted it with 8mils of RO/DI water.



I now had my solutions that I could test and simply followed the Hana testing procedures with the control sample and reagent sample.



===========================================

The results were not overly surprising. We all know these foods contain phosphates that are typically used as a preservative. As I said earlier, I was mostly curious about which food items had the most phosphate. To add to my disclaimer, this is NOT a scientific experiment by any stretch of the imagination. I tried my best to keep consistent with each test but there is still a huge potential for error. This really just gives me a rough ballpark idea rather than concrete evidence of anything. Having said all that, here are my results!

NB: All results in PPM (Parts Per Million). I performed 3 tests for each sample and took an average. The meter has a resolution of 0 to 2.5. Anything higher than 2.5 and it just flashes 2.5.

1. My homemade fish mush - 1.81
2. PE Misys (unrinsed) - 1.90
3. Nori (sheets from Superstore) - 2.04
4. Formula 1 flakes - > 2.5 !!
5. Formula 1 pellets - 2.3
6. Tap Water - 0.00
7. RO/DI Water - 0.00
8. Rinsed PE Misys - TBD
9. New Salt Water (Instant Ocean) - TBD

So there we have it. Again, I can not emphasize enough, take these results with a grain of sea salt! They are not scientific. You will notice a couple of TBD up there. I plan to do a water change tomorrow so I'll be testing that mixture and post the results then. I have also rinsed the sample of PE Misys to see what difference that makes. It should be ready for me to test tomorrow morning as it is currently leeching in its bowl.

I need to buy more reagents..

This is great thanks

[kien]

Originally Posted by MitchM

Interesting that one coral "browned out" while others were dying off.

Browning is a typical sign of high nutrients, isn't it?
Perhaps the mucus secretion from your LPS and soft corals had increased suddenly for some reason leading to a high level of dissolved organics, plus some added chemical warfare happening at the same time.

Were you adding any corals shortly before that "event" or fragging anything?

Mitch

Actually there was more than one that browned out. Mostly all of the surviving SPS (50% of them) browned out to some degree. Some receded from the bottom some from the tips. Some STN'ed some RTN'ed. No fragging was done. Yes a few corals were added just prior. Yes what you suggest is certainly a possibility among a laundry list of other possibilities. In the end Im leaning towards the cause not being one thing but rather a cascade of events probably.

[kien]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

...
I could be wrong but that's what I always thought anyhow.

Cool thanks Tony!

[Lance]

Thanks for the info Kien. That was a substantial amount of effort! Makes me re-think using flake foods.

[lobsterboy]

wow thats some sick info there Kien, impressive.

ya didnt happen to test New Life Spectrum.... ?

[kien]

Originally Posted by lobsterboy

wow thats some sick info there Kien, impressive.

ya didnt happen to test New Life Spectrum.... ?

No, sorry

Okay, so to finish up these tests I tested PE Mysis rinsed, New Salt Water (Instant Ocean), and my homemade fish mush prior to adding additives such as garlic and vitamins. I updated the original post with these results, but here they are.

- Rinsed PE Mysis - >2.5 !!
- New Salt Water (Instant Ocean) - 0.0
- My Homemade Fish mush (before additives added) - 0.33

Now, the first thing that jumped out at me was the PE Mysis! Yikes! One thing that was different was that I left the PE Mysis out over night so it had a long time to leech out. Also, PE Mysis is made up of a heck of a lot of water, so there must be a lot of phosphate bound up in its body. I was quite surprised to see how little phosphate was in the superstore mixed seafood which I use for my homemade blended fish mush. This leads me to conclude that there must be a lot of phosphates in the additives, either the garlic extract or selcon or both!