Phosphate
Silicate
Nitrite and Nitrate
Test Strips
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Silicate, Phosphate, and The Minimum Set of Test Kits
Silicate and Phosphate are nutrients of different kinds of bad algaes and they can be removed by adding Silicate Remover and Phosphate Remover corresponding. These two are the other chemcial levels that you must keep an eye on besides the usual nitrite, nitrate, etc. Silicate should be gone once the cycle has been properly established. Phosphate will come back again if the pH level is low.
In the long - run, you should have a set of test kits to constantly monitor your tank and to identify the problem once you see something is wrong in your tank. Unfortunately, there are too many test kits in the market and they are all useful. (It is unfortunate because it is expensive to get the complete set.)
However, we want to recommend you a minimum set of
test kits: Nitrate, Nitrite, pH, and Alkalinity. This minimum set, of course, does not give
all the information for you to find out the
cause of problem in your tank. But they are
good enough to maintain your fish tank.
If you are getting corals later on, then
it is necessary for you to add a few more
test kits to give the basic parameters. If
you are interested and ready for a reef tank,
you will need other test kits, such as the
Calcium and Magnesium, etc.
Phosphate
Phosophate are set free in the decomposition
of plants, and other dead micro-organisms. (Remember the nutrient bombs issues.)
What may not be commonly known is that there is a pool of phosphate present
in the tank at all time. The phosphate molecules are commonly
found in water in the form bound to the other chemicals. The interesting point
is that the pool of phosphate is inversely related
to the pH level in the tank. That is, more
phosphate molecules are released if the pH
level is low than if the pH level is high.
Since phosphate is an essential nutrient
to algaes, the release of the phosphate molecules
will result in an uncontrolled growth of
algaes. This gives another reason for you
to monitor your pH level closely. (Fortunately,
phosphate molecules can be removed effectively
by protein skimming.)
Phosphate Test Kit
Above is a picture of a Phosphate test kit
from SALIFERT. You can see the 2 chemical
solutions that you will need to do the test.
The general testing procedure is very easy.
Add the required amount of your water into
the plastic container (the top one) and mix
it with the chemicals. Wait for the water
to change its color and match the result
with the color chart shown.What we want to show you here is that as you can see it is very difficult to tell
your result when you try to match the
water
sample with the color chart provided. This is the major drawback of this and
many other similar kinds of test strips.
First, they are complicated to use.
Second,
it is difficult for you to tell the
result
of the test by matching the colors
of your
result and the color chart. This can
really
damage the the accuracy of your test.
Phosphate Remover
As you have probably known, silicate and phosphate are chemicals that will show up in your initial water tests when you just set up your tank.
Let us review about Phosphate brieftly here.
What is it? Why do you want to remove it?
Phosophate is simply one of the nutrients
that are set free in the decomposition of
plants, and other dead micro-organisms. What
is different between Phosphate from Silicate
is that there is always a pool of phosphate present in your tank. The interesting
thing is that the pool of phosphate is inversely
related to the pH level in the tank. That
is, more phosphate molecules are released
if the pH level is lower than before. Since phosphate is an essential nutrient
to algaes, any extra phosphate in your tank
leads to an uncontrolled growth of algaes. If you have an effective protein skimmer,
the excess phosphate can be removed
as one
of the nutrients by the skimmer. This
is
because phosphate usually combines
with other
chemcials when it is dissolved in the
water.
However, if the pH level has not been
set
such as in the case of setting up a
new tank,
the 2 phosphate remover products can
be quite
handy.
