phosphate control product???

[Duker]

Hey all, just wondering what people are using BESIDES regular GFO, or Rowaphos?
I have used both, regular GFO and now onto Rowaphos, but I need something stronger....any suggestions?

[freezetyle]

Originally Posted by Duker

Hey all, just wondering what people are using BESIDES regular GFO, or Rowaphos?
I have used both, regular GFO and now onto Rowaphos, but I need something stronger....any suggestions?

TimT gave me some samples of the Foz Down stuff. you could swipe of of those bottles to try. Or asks Aqua_digital to give you a sample.

Just put a filter sock on the end of your drain plumbing and dose it into the overflow portion. It should precipitate into the filter sock. similar (sounds exactly) to lanthanum chloride that they use in pools

[whatcaneyedo]

Besides regular GFO I do these:
'Oversized' skimmer
10% weekly water changes
Calcium hydroxide
Macro algae
Strain frozen food of its packing water after thawing
Manageable livestock load.

Phosphate and the Reef Aquarium
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/index.php

Several retailers also sell high capacity GFO.

[TimT]

Foz Down works great and I have used it here for years.

Since I don't thaw and refreeze my Pacifica Plankton when I make it there is no water to discard. I don't rinse the Pacifica Plankton when I feed it as the juice off of it has lots of minerals, amino acids and fatty acids that the corals love.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by TimT

Foz Down works great and I have used it here for years.

Since I don't thaw and refreeze my Pacifica Plankton when I make it there is no water to discard. I don't rinse the Pacifica Plankton when I feed it as the juice off of it has lots of minerals, amino acids and fatty acids that the corals love.

i love pacifica plankton i think its an incrdible product i also dont rinse it, i do for just about all my other frozen but i find the corals love the juices, i use the juices to entise my nps to come out for feedings

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by TimT

Foz Down works great and I have used it here for years.

Since I don't thaw and refreeze my Pacifica Plankton when I make it there is no water to discard. I don't rinse the Pacifica Plankton when I feed it as the juice off of it has lots of minerals, amino acids and fatty acids that the corals love.

I have a package of that in my freezer that I occasionally feed my fish. On the package it says "*Rinse before feeding". So I'm a little confused. If you're against rinsing it why does your packaging say to rinse?

[TimT]

I have an over sized downdraft skimmer(ETSS 1000) running ozone. My set up can handle a little extra "juice". Other people may not be running a monster skimmer with ozone and have different maintenance regimes than I do. The "Rinse before feeding" recommendation is so they don't potentially overload their tanks. Just trying to be helpful is all

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by Duker

Hey all, just wondering what people are using BESIDES regular GFO, or Rowaphos?
I have used both, regular GFO and now onto Rowaphos, but I need something stronger....any suggestions?

if you need something stronger than gfo then i would start looking into where all this phosphate is coming from??

[FragIt Dan]

I have been playing around with Brightwell Aquatics XPort PO4, which is kind of like a crouton version of GFO, but 'ultra' high capacity and not requiring fluidizing. I am down to using half the recommended dose of the same amount of HC GFO and after a couple of months am still getting Hannah PO4 readings near 0.00-0.03 with daily feedings of Reef Snow, various other (non-rinsed) foods for the fish and periodically coral frenzy and reef roids (very high in PO4) and ATO with RODI.
In terms of food rinsing, Randy HF recently wrote an article that covered sources of PO4 in the aquarium and concluded PO4 sourced from most (or maybe all) frozen foods were the major contributor to PO4 but rinsing did NOT reduce PO4 by any significant amount: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry.
I am happy with the XPort PO4 product but don't see why using more GFO wouldn't accomplish the same goal. I have some extra if anyone around Nanaimo would like to give it a try.
Dan

[lastlight]

So if you dose into your overflow and it goes almost immediately into a filter sock... is the foz down still as effective? And will a 200 micron sock catch the precipitate? I'd imagine that not all of the foz down would react right away and it would get through the sock itself and cause precipitation elsewhere where you can't collect it?

I have an unused doser channel so I'm curious...