# po4 levels



## billy boy (2 Oct 2008)

After haveing some bother with green spot alage everything pointed to my po4 levels, so off i went and got a kit and my levels turned out to be 2.5mg, the leaflet that came with the kit says its down to lack of maintenance or overfeeding which i know its neither of these as i clean and change 50% of my water weekly!
so my question is why are my levels to high? could it be my ferts which is a diy tropica which consists of ingredients below

48g Potassium Nitrate
2.2g Potassium Phosphate (monobasic)
17g Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate (Epsom Salts)
5g Aqua Essentials Trace Elements Mix
0.5g E300 Ascorbic Acid
0.2g E202 Potassium Sorbate
500ml distilled water

any help would be much appreciated, thanks billy boy


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## ceg4048 (2 Oct 2008)

Hi,
     Do you mean your test kit reads 2.5 ppm? There is no way you test kit can return a milligram value. GSA occurs due to low PO4 so my recommendation would be to throw your test kit away and add more PO4, either to your formula or add it separately.

Cheers


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## JamesC (2 Oct 2008)

Or could be low CO2 as well.

James


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## ceg4048 (2 Oct 2008)

Yep, true enough. Would be interesting to know whether there are any other CO2 related issues in the tank such as hair/staghorn/BBA or slow growth?

Cheers,


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## billy boy (2 Oct 2008)

My drop checker is showing a deep green, i have a small amount of bba but it seems to be just on the older leaves of my narrow leaf, sorry the nutrafin test does read ppm. doh


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## GreenNeedle (2 Oct 2008)

I wouldn't say 2.5ppm is too high anyway.  I think overfeeding from the furry narrow leaf you describe.  or overfeeding in one are of the tank.

AC


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## ceg4048 (2 Oct 2008)

Well, see if you can increase the CO2 to get the drop checker more lime green. We assume you are using 4dkh water in the checker, correct?

Cheers,


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## billy boy (4 Oct 2008)

ceg4048 said:
			
		

> Well, see if you can increase the CO2 to get the drop checker more lime green. We assume you are using 4dkh water in the checker, correct?
> 
> Cheers,




Yes i am useing 4dkh, i will increase the co2 and take it from there, thanks for your help


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