Gfo and carbon dosing

[ScubaSteve]

Yes, I've read that article too.. but I kinda disagree with his comments on GFO being unnecessary.

Bacterial removal of nutrients is no new thing; it's actually fairly common practice in water treatment (one of my fields of research). The thing is, if you break down the chemical equation for nutrient conversion to biomass (how much mass of nutrient becomes mass of bacteria), phosphates are removed much slower rate than nitrates (at least for the bacteria we commonly see in our tanks). So your bacteria driven system will most likely be carbon and nitrate limited rather than phosphate limited, meaning you will have an excess of phosphates (though your phospahte level WIL go down); it helps to have GFO or something similar to handle the rest.

That being said, if your have a TON of GFO and are removing phosphates very aggressively, you will make the bacteria driven system phosphate limited and it does become counter productive. This situation is not as likely as the first.