RowaPhos or PhosBan?

[christyf5]

I don't know about cost effectiveness/which will go farther. For me, it cost what it costs and thats all there is to it. If it isn't a Hagen product Nanaimo doesn't have it I went with Rowaphos, mostly because it was the only one that was available to me at the time (I was in Vancouver), I wanted it and was at the store to get it. I bought it to run in a Phosban Reactor. I don't know if I used it improperly but I rinsed it well before putting it in the reactor and then ran about 5 gallons of water slowly through the reactor (too quickly and it just gets clogged at the top of it) and discarded that water. I then set the reactor to where the rowaphos is gently "bubbling" (for lack of a better word). And away it went. I have a phosphate test kit but my tank water never registers and my RODI water doesn't register as well. But something is making the algae grow.

Two days after introduction of the reactor I noticed that a lot of my SPS were sort of browning out. Mostly the pinks and blues, the yellows were the same as always. On the third day 3 frags were white skeletons and two more were starting to recede from the bottom up. I immediately turned the reactor off, assuming that some of the reactor particulate/sludge had gotten into the tank and was causing a problem (theres some really red junk that comes off that stuff at the beginning). I siphoned the bottom of the tank and sump and watched the receding frags over the next few days. Tissue recession stopped at the point I orignally caught it and it didn't go any further.

I don't know if this was the rowaphos or something else in the tank. Considering I didn't have any problems before starting the reactor and I haven't had any problems since turning it off, I attribute the coral losses and fading color to the rowaphos. Kind of disappointing as I was pretty excited about both the reactor and the rowaphos. I had used rowaphos previously in a filter sock but I don't know if I wasn't using enough or didn't have enough flow through the sock as it didn't do anything to hold my algae in check/decrease growth.

Currently I am running carbon in my reactor and it works like a hot damn!

I haven't decided whether I will use the rowaphos again. If I do I will introduce it to the tank slowly. Right now I'm just trying to see if the color comes back (its been about 4-6 weeks). I'm not adverse to trying phosban the next time out. I dont' know if I just can't find any threads on problems people have had with it or its less popular.

JMO
Christy