# Phosguard to lower Phosphates and its effects on Algae



## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

Hello Everyone. Please help! I have a 65 gallon FW tank. Recently I replaced my old bulbs with new bulbs for my tank. I have two PC with a total wattage of 190W. (2.92 WPG) I dose fertilizers in my tank (stuff from Rex's Fertilizers and Excel). Since I changed my bulbs I have had an insane bloom of staghorn algae, along with green spot algae all over the walls of my tank. It looks horrible. It literally took 3 days to cover my tank. It is also choking my plants out. I have increased my fertilizers relutantly, for fear of killing my precious shrimp.  I own RCS, bamboo shrimp, Amano shrimp and Blue tiger shrimp. My tank is heavily planted with some guppies, balloon mollies, corys, and shrimp. I have increased my Excel dosage and fertilizers. I am thinking my next step is to buy some phosguard from seachem and see if I can't lower my phosphate level. (I have not tested it. I don't have a kit. I am only assumming its high) All other parameters are normal, i.e. ph, nitrate, ammonia, KH, GH. My CO2 is a little on the low side. I have increased my injection (I have a pressurized CO2 injection system) and I have decreased my light time (9 hours from 10 hours). My question to the forum is....should I proceed with the Phosguard? Should I just wait and see if the excel and fertilizers fix my bloom? How long do I have to wait? What risk do I pose to my shrimps with the increase in fertilizer? How much is too deadly for them? I love my shrimps very much. Their lives are extremely important to me. Please help.


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

Sounds like you need to work on adjusting your CO2 levels, circulation and probably the amount you are dosing. Don't remove the phosphates your plants need to grow and be healthy. Higher doses of phosphates can actually help with GSA and they don't cause algae. Light drives the need for ferts and especially CO2. The less light you use the easier it is to dial in good CO2 levels and the leaner you can dose your tank. Make sure to increase CO2 levels slowly and never increase them if you are not going to be home to watch the tank. Raise the level slowly over a period of days. Shrimp are going to me the most sensitive to CO2. I only keep Amano shrimp and dose EI style, the fert levels have never been a problem with them but they freak out if the CO2 is too high.

Generally when increasing light levels like you have done it is a good idea to start with a low photoperiod and ramp up the time the lights are on slowly. Plants need time to adjust to the new light intensity before they can take full advantage of it. I would cut your light back to 6 or 7 hours max for now, 10 hours is too long and reducing to 9 probably won't have much of an impact. You could also raise the fixture to reduce light intensity which would make it easier to adjust CO2.

If you can give us some more info about your tank... how much of what you are dosing, how often, are you using the EI method, doing weekly water changes etc. you may get some more specific answers. Also, what type of plants are you growing? Most importantly how are you diffusing your CO2 and how are you monitoring levels?

I have one 50 gallon tank with 130 watts of PC light and use floating plants and daily doses of Excel to keep algae at bay. Photoperiod is between 6.5 and 7 hours. I get a little algae but not much and whatever algae crops up grows very slowly making it manageable.

If you haven't seen them these are two sites with good algae info...

http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

*More info on my tank*

View attachment 20264
With regards to dosing....
I dose KNO3 - 2gm, KH2PO4 -0.3gm, K2SO4-7 gm, and CSM+B -0.4 gm. I dose the CSM+B about every 10 days, because I read that it is not good for my shrimp. I dose the remaining 3 every 5 to 9 days. I do water changes every 3 to 7 days. I have done them more frequently lately to try to get this staghorn algae under control. I have crypts, vals, moss, baby tears, and a variety of other plants that I don't know the name of. I will put a picture in here so you can see them. I decreased my light time. Do you think I should up my fertilizer? Thanks.


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## MarkMc (Apr 27, 2007)

SmoothSailor said:


> View attachment 20264
> With regards to dosing....
> I dose KNO3 - 2gm, KH2PO4 -0.3gm, K2SO4-7 gm, and CSM+B -0.4 gm. I dose the CSM+B about every 10 days, because I read that it is not good for my shrimp. I dose the remaining 3 every 5 to 9 days. I do water changes every 3 to 7 days. I have done them more frequently lately to try to get this staghorn algae under control. I have crypts, vals, moss, baby tears, and a variety of other plants that I don't know the name of. I will put a picture in here so you can see them. I decreased my light time. Do you think I should up my fertilizer? Thanks.


If I understand this correctly you dose macros every 5 to 9 days? If you are changing water at 50% then you might want to dose that amount every other day and dose the micros on the off days. To give you an idea: I dose every other day 5/8 teaspoon nitrate, 1/8 to 2/8 teaspoon phosphate and 3/8 teaspoon potassium. On the off days I dose CSM+B 1/8 teaspoon and 1/8 teaspoon iron. 50% water change on Saturday. 55 gallon 108 watts T-5HO raised 1 1/2 feet above the tank pressurized CO2 into a 2 foot high dedicated reactor 3 nano power heads for recirculation.


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

*Algae*

Mark,
Thank you for your reply. I will increase my fert dosing like you suggested. Since I last posted my message, I have decreased light time and have starting dosing two capfuls of EXCEL each day. Yesterday my amano shrimp died. Now he was old, but hindsight it may have been the EXCEL. My flower shrimp (bamboo shrimp) has turned red. I hope he is okay. What do you think? My staghorn algae is still all over and killing things. I also continue to have the green dot algae problem on my glass. Do you think I should stop dosing my excel?


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## MarkMc (Apr 27, 2007)

SmoothSailor said:


> Mark,
> Thank you for your reply. I will increase my fert dosing like you suggested. Since I last posted my message, I have decreased light time and have starting dosing two capfuls of EXCEL each day. Yesterday my amano shrimp died. Now he was old, but hindsight it may have been the EXCEL. My flower shrimp (bamboo shrimp) has turned red. I hope he is okay. What do you think? My staghorn algae is still all over and killing things. I also continue to have the green dot algae problem on my glass. Do you think I should stop dosing my excel?


The other issue to address is lighting. Reduce the interval to say, eight hours and can you raise the fixture? That is quite a bit of light. The other side of the equation is CO2. Can you safely increase the level of CO2? Then make sure that it is distributed evenly in the tank using power heads. Point one up so that there is a good surface ripple for O2 exchange (not too much mind you). I suspect that this outbreak was triggered by installing the new bulbs which probably put out more light. Too much light and not enough CO2 and ferts equals algae. I had a staghorn infestation once and I can say that I only made it worse by trying to remove phosphate. BTW this advice is what I've learned here on this forum and have been proving to myself with my own tank. It's really pretty simple stuff. Do a search on the poster Tom Barr and Hoppy to name a couple and read their posts.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

If that is the same tank I have it is 24 inches high, 36 inches long, and 18 inches front to back. I'm assuming you have two 96 watt PC lights on it. The 18 inch depth suggests that the two PC bulbs should be spaced around 6 inches or more apart to get uniform light over the whole substrate. You may have low medium light intensity, but probably not more than that, so the plants aren't going to grow very fast, but if you have the CO2 system running good you should still get reasonably good growth.

The best way to dose Excel and not harm the fish is to follow the bottle dose recomendations, which I believe would be one capful plus a little every day or two. More than that and there is always a chance of harming some of the livestock. If your CO2 is set right you don't need Excel.

Green spot algae often means not enough phosphates being dosed. I have been dosing about double the EI recommended dosages, relative to the other ferts, for a couple of years now, to keep GSA under control - it works.

Staghorn algae is one I haven't had much of, so I'm not sure what might be causing that. But, Excel will kill it, or should, especially if you squirt the tank's dosage of Excel directly on the algae.


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

Mark, I completely agree with you. I believe my new lights triggered this. I went home last night and discovered yet another dead shrimp. I decided to do a 50% water change and surprise...more dead shrimp. I have been overdosing my excel to try to stop my staghorn outbreak. (2 capfuls for a 65 gal daily. I believe a capful is 10ml) I think this is what probably killed my shrimp. So I changed 50% of the water and tried to cut as much of the staghorn out of the tank as possible. I am going to cut my Excel dosage back to 1 capful every other day. 
In regards to the lights....I can't get them up any higher. My 65 gal sits in our main room which has 16 foot ceilings. It is not possible to me to raise them. However, I did save my old lights. Do you think I should replace one of the new lights with the orginial old one????


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

Hoppy,
I have that exact tank!! And I have the same lights too. I have a light fixture I bought on-line. It has two 95W PC bulbs in it. And they are not 6 inches apart, so you are probably right. I am not getting even light distribution. Do you think I should take one of my new lights out and put one of my old bulbs back in the tank?? I am reducing my Excel treatment. I killed a few of my shrimp and my bamboo shrimp looks bright red and angry. I pray I don't loose him. I love him dearly. I plan on uping my phosphate dosage. My next dosage will be tonight. Next ....my CO2 levels. I measured my levels yesterday. pH=7, Kh=2, GH=3, ....so using the graph provide my CO2 is roughly 5. Very low I know. I gave one teaspoon of sodium bicarb to increase my kH. I don't run my CO2 at night. I have it on a timer with my lights. What would you suggest I do next with my CO2? Should I continue to give bicarb? Should I increase the rate? I have one of those cheap little glass diffusers. Mark suggested I use a powerhead to increase diffusion of CO2? What type of set up do you use? Thank you so much.
cary


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

Hoppy--what is a spray bar? How do I get one? I am not completely clear on this.


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## houstonhobby (Dec 12, 2008)

As someone else would say, lower the light. Probably by cutting the photoperiod down.


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## MarkMc (Apr 27, 2007)

You can't go by the old kH/pH chart. You need a drop checker and a solution of distilled water that has been calibrated to 4 dkH. Or you can run your CO2 at a rate that gives you a .5 to 1.0 pH drop from lights off (with NO CO2 injected during lights out.) to a couple hours into your light cycle. That would be approximately 30ppm give or take. HOWEVER increasing CO2 can be risky to tank inhabitants so you must proceed slowly and watch your livestock very closely. I will say that the pH swing of .5 point from CO2 would be LESS stressful to your fauna than a .5 point pH change brought about from adding baking soda. IMO you don't need to add that (baking soda).


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

When you say drop checker...do you mean a CO2 kit? I don't exactly know what a drop checker is? I am probably stressing my fish and shrimp out a ton when I drop baking soda in the tank. :-( Ugh. Thanks for the information. I had no idea about that. Please let me know about the CO2 drop checker. Also...how do I calibrate my solution to 4dKh?


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## MarkMc (Apr 27, 2007)

SmoothSailor said:


> When you say drop checker...do you mean a CO2 kit? I don't exactly know what a drop checker is? I am probably stressing my fish and shrimp out a ton when I drop baking soda in the tank. :-( Ugh. Thanks for the information. I had no idea about that. Please let me know about the CO2 drop checker. Also...how do I calibrate my solution to 4dKh?


Do a search on ebay for pH drop checker. You can buy them for around $10. You can also buy the 4dkH water online from various sources or you can make your own with distilled water and baking soda but it is pretty involved and you need calibrated vessels to do it. You can buy those on line too but it's much easier to buy it already made-it will last a very long time. Basically the drop checker will indicate when you have approx 30 ppm CO2 by turning green-it uses basic pH reagent but by using distilled water in it set at 4dkH no other factors are skewing the reading such as other buffering components in your water.


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## SmoothSailor (Mar 15, 2010)

I bought my CO2 drop checker yesterday. I think its from Hong Kong. I lost my bamboo shrimp this morning. I am devastated. He was on the ground eatting for the last few days. I did a 50% water change yesterday and rearranged the tank. It was too much for him. He turned yellow and died. I hate losing them. I know he was from the wild. Does anyone know anything about breeding these guys? I hate buying wild caught inverts.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

I had put a bag with phosguard in my 29G tank. The nitrates are usually 0. They went up to 60 and I developed string algae. Took it out and now nitrates are down to 0.

So did you get the algae under control?


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