Phosphate in frozen food

[seacraze]

Definately going to try that recipe - thank you

I rinse all my frozen foods several times before feeding out including cyclopeeze I use brine shrimp nets or micron screening they work perfect with zero loss of food. Hope this helps.

[renogaw]

Originally posted by Gobie74
After feeding today I did a quick test with the Phosphate meter and I got 0.04.

Today was also the first day I filtered all the food out of the water I thawed it in so I can't really say what it would have been had I not filtered it.

The only thing I couldn't really filter was the frozen Cyclopeeze, they went right through the net. I'm going to see if I can find something that can filter them, or do you think they are pretty free of phosphates? I use the large frozen package thats about a foot long and 9" wide. I didn't see any weight on the label

put a cube in a container of water, keep it overnight, then test the phosphates in the morning... you'd be surprised. also, as for cyclopeeze, there's a new food out i'm going to pickup today (coral reef was out of it) that is just called cyclops--has the same food as cyclopeze but is $5 instead of $12 and is cubed instead of that big log. i'm going to try it out.


http://www.sfbb.com/product_popup.as...=Cyclops&id=43


btw, for those of us that feed flake (yes, i do also) a lot of flakes have high phosphates in it as well. the only stuff i've tried that doesnt is sera's flake food with tidbits.

[renogaw]

Originally posted by renogaw
i don't know the name of the mysid i have, but i tried some stuff and the shrimp were so big my fish couldnt eat it. the last stuff i got from petco and it seems ok. i'll check what type it is.

sally's frozen mysis shrimp san francisco bay brand.

i've not had phosphate issues by just putting the whole cube in.

[Obi-dad]

Originally posted by giants4pc
I test for phosphates and it always reads zero however.

What are you using to test phosphates? I am measuring with a Hanna colorimeter because the Salifert kit doesn't measure anything unless the phosphates are very high.

[renogaw]

i use salifert's test kits, and i've gotten phosphates while testing my food before rinsing, but i never have phosphates in my tank. have you used both your tester and salifert's and received different results?

[Gobie74]

Originally posted by KingOfJericho
Cyclopeeze do not need to be filtered but things like brine and mysis shrimp certainly do. I use a Phosban reactor with ROWA Phos and my phosphates are almost nil changing the media monthly (buy it online as it's pricey in stores). It's a cheap solution to algae that I don't know why people would live without!

Thanks, from now on I'm going to start filtering everything and see what happens. Well, maybe not the cyclopeeze since its so small.

I'm using a PhosBan reactor and have been using PhosBan. Do you recommend ROWA Phos over PhosBan?

[Gobie74]

Originally posted by renogaw
put a cube in a container of water, keep it overnight, then test the phosphates in the morning... you'd be surprised. also, as for cyclopeeze, there's a new food out i'm going to pickup today (coral reef was out of it) that is just called cyclops--has the same food as cyclopeze but is $5 instead of $12 and is cubed instead of that big log. i'm going to try it out.


http://www.sfbb.com/product_popup.as...=Cyclops&id=43


btw, for those of us that feed flake (yes, i do also) a lot of flakes have high phosphates in it as well. the only stuff i've tried that doesnt is sera's flake food with tidbits.

I think I'll try this. First I'll test the tank water so there's a reference. Then I'll let some mysis thaw over night and test in the morning. Maybe some brine shrimp too. I'll let you know what I get tomorrow.

[KingOfJericho]

Originally posted by Gobie74
Do you recommend ROWA Phos over PhosBan?

Absolutely!

[Obi-dad]

Originally posted by renogaw
i use salifert's test kits, and i've gotten phosphates while testing my food before rinsing, but i never have phosphates in my tank. have you used both your tester and salifert's and received different results?

Yes. Salifert will read zero when there is phosphates that the Hanna can detect (the salifert kit is not sensitive to low amounts, it can only detect when there is a lot of phosphates). The Hanna meter is a colorimeter that measures color changes the eye can't detect. The point being that if you test your water with Salifert and get zero, you don't really have zero phosphates. Not a big deal with softy tanks, but can be a big deal with acros.

[Gobie74]

So I ran the tests I mentioned above this morning.

Last night before going to bed I put 1/2 a cube of Mysis and Brine Shrimp into about a cup of water and let them sit overnight. The water they thawed in was from the tank and had a reading from the Hanna meter of 0.04.

This morning, I measured both samples and got :

2.57 ppm - Brine Shrimp
1.71 ppm - Mysis Shrimp

I knew it was going to be pretty high. When I added the reagent to the cuvets the water inside turned blue. It never does that when testing the tank water.

Tomorrow I think I'll test Cyclopeeze and some Tetra flake food.

So seeing is believing, I'm definitely going to be filter my food before I feed it from now on.

[Obi-dad]

Originally posted by Gobie74
So I ran the tests I mentioned above this morning.

Last night before going to bed I put 1/2 a cube of Mysis and Brine Shrimp into about a cup of water and let them sit overnight. The water they thawed in was from the tank and had a reading from the Hanna meter of 0.04.

This morning, I measured both samples and got :

2.57 ppm - Brine Shrimp
1.71 ppm - Mysis Shrimp

So those results are from just a cup of water? Adding 1 cup of water with 2.57 ppm to your whole tank will result in a much smaller concentration. I would suggest adding the food to your tank, then measuring the tank water, since that is more relevant to the tanks' inhabitants.

The results I got were from adding the 1/2 cube to the whole tank, about 80 total gallons.

[Gobie74]

I understand that it would get diluted. I was just trying to show that there is indeed a lot of phosphate in frozen food, or at least enough to be an easily eliminated source of phosphates.

[renogaw]

did you test the cyclopeze and flake?

[Obi-dad]

Not yet, but I tested 2 ml of a concentrated phyto product in the tank - 0.45. Yikes! Can't really 'rinse' phyto. I won't be using it anymore.

[renogaw]

well, i'm constantly making phyto if you want to buy it from me

i curretnly have 4 extra bottles to be honest...