Phosban media replacement

[jasond]

That hair algae and cyano are a pain! I have a lot smaller system, but my cyano seems to have disappeared after months of fighting, but my hair algae has increased. There are some good articles on reefcentral about using a phosban which is what originally sold me on it, but I have yet to see great results. That being said, without me knowing my media may have been exhausted, which is....my fault

[andresont]

Originally Posted by jasond

That hair algae and cyano are a pain! I have a lot smaller system, but my cyano seems to have disappeared after months of fighting, but my hair algae has increased. There are some good articles on reefcentral about using a phosban which is what originally sold me on it, but I have yet to see great results. That being said, without me knowing my media may have been exhausted, which is....my fault

A lot of Po4 is being stored in live rock and sand, that is why you still have hair algae.
keep up agressive Po4 filtering

[surgeonfish]

Originally Posted by andresont

A lot of Po4 is being stored in live rock and sand, that is why you still have hair algae.
keep up agressive Po4 filtering

I agree. When I first got my phosban reactor, I did have a rapid improvement with my hair algae. It eventually has come back. I have been more aggresive with changing my ROWAphos (now every 1-2 weeks) and have much less cyano. I have not seen much change in my hair algae but it may take a additional weeks to see a change.

[Delphinus]

1-2 weeks! Just curious, have you actually tested your reactor effluent with the photometer and you noticed a difference in the levels?

I'm not testing fanatically anymore.. but I noticed my reactor effluent was 0.0 for about 2 days then after that it started to climb. So now I'm wondering now if it wasn't precision error (ie. the "to within 0.04" thing) after all, although I still think 2 days is awfully fast for phosban to exhaust itself.

[Johnny Reefer]

My Reef consistently reads 0.01. My Trigger tank reads anywhere from 0.075 to 0.25, depending on the age of the RowaPhos. The difference between the two tanks in relation to this? The Reef has hair algae and multiple types of macros and the Trigger tank’s algae is minimal. I think the two tanks may have similar phosphate levels,....just that the phosphates in the reef are primarily in the alga, and the phosphates in the Trigger tank are in the water. I stopped using RowaPhos on the Reef about 2 months ago because of the consistent 0.01 readings. So far, so good. The Trigger tank RowaPhos gets changed out every 4 to 8 weeks. It’s a challenge getting that one below 0.075.

Cheers,