Total Noob Question: Phosphate

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Oh, there is one more algae. Green. Looks kind of like bryopsis. I've totally forgotten the name right now. It is another tough one to eradicate. I've got dino's too.

Edit: Derbesia is the other one.

how do you know you have dinos??


it is very hard to get rid of dinos if you have it, most times people mistake it for cyano. to my knowlege dinos can only be id'd under micro scope

cyano also cause similiar bubbles to dinos

[Enigma]

Well, if it is cyano I'll be much happier.

I wonder if the red slime remover that I picked up today would nuke brown cyano, too?

Interesting. My new fox face eats cyano. He's picking it off the Duncan.

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by George

Hanna 713 PO4 checker(I assume that's the one you have) has an accuracy of +(-)0.04ppm. So your water out of the reactor could be 0ppm or 0.05 ppm. As long as water out of the reactor has a lower PO4 level than the tank water, then your GFO is still good.

Thanks

I was hoping it would be more accurate than that, but at least it will tell me if my media needs changed or not.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Thanks

I was hoping it would be more accurate than that, but at least it will tell me if my media needs changed or not.

i dont think they can make it that accurate because there has to be a difference between your reactor and your display.

if phosphates are added to your tank, which is inevitable, the reactor turns them into zero. there has to be the change over period.



ive heard of fox faces mucnhing cyano before so thats a good thing

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Well, if it is cyano I'll be much happier.

I wonder if the red slime remover that I picked up today would nuke brown cyano, too?

Interesting. My new fox face eats cyano. He's picking it off the Duncan.

yup it should for sure


just follow instructions to a tee

[Cal_stir]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Thanks

I was hoping it would be more accurate than that, but at least it will tell me if my media needs changed or not.

You have to find what works and just stick to it, I have a 90gal heavy fed and 500ml BRS HC GFO changed every 3 weeks works for me, I regenerate my GFO to save money.

[Enigma]

Hmm. I don't think ROWAphos can be regenerated. I'm going to have to investigate. It was quite costly, and that certainly affects my willingness to change it often.

[Cal_stir]

It has to be high capacity GFO to regenerate it, the reg stuff disintegrates too easily, I don't know if rowaphos can be regenerated.

[Mike-fish]

I know you want phosphate to be as low as possible but what is the accepted maximum for an Lps reef

[FragIt Dan]

0.03 is the number i see commonly quoted as a targeted level for PO4. Your test accuracy, as earlier mentioned, is about this, so anything from 0.00 to 0.08 would be within a range I would be happy with. If it was on the higher range in there and I were having algae issues I might try running more GFO, but I would say with your current levels changing it now would have little to no noticeable affect. Pulling PO4 lower than about 0.03ppn will likely result in bleaching of sps and slowed growth as PO4 acts as a seed crystal in the coral's calcification process. If you are running a system that is having algae issues with PO4 around the 0.03ppm, look at your sources and sinks for PO4... you can have low levels while still cycling a lot through the system, it just gets taken up quickly by your sinks. In terms of cyano or Dino's, I often see issues during summer with them in many tanks. I suspect it has to do with increased silica levels in the tap water as my RODI system seems to get plugged with brown scum much faster during summer months and tank blooms seem to be much more common during summer (from what I've seen). I have had less issues since running RODI, but that's just me
Dan