GFO bleached my SPS overnight...

[Wes]

i'm a bit depressed and at a loss of how to move forward.

For those who don't know i have been using Fauna Marin Ultralith System for a while and have been talking about how awesome my colors have been as of late.

However, I suddenly had a bit of a hair algae bloom. Which brought up questions about the ultralith's capabilites of removing Phosphate. So saturday i picked up a can of Pura Phoslock and decided to start out w/ 4 tablespoons on my 65g tank.

I made sure it was rinsed very very well, nothing but clear water coming through. and put it in a media bag in a spot that got a nice steady gentle stream of flow. I figured it would be a pretty non-aggressive approach to take down the PO4 a bit.

The next day all of my vibrant color is gone and i'm back to very pale pastel acros...The algae seems to be dying off but i wish i would have just let things be....Three months of dosing amino acids, bacteria, blah blah blah and now i'm back to square one w/ pale colors. I didn't experience any Alk drop like people warn about. I don't think i used alot of the GFO. Maybe i just stripped too much out of the water and should have just been patient and let the Zeo take care of it. I don't know...

My polyp extension isn't that hot either. What do you guys think, remove the GFO?

 

[Chris5]

I would just my 2cents, Im also a fan of the famous MR quote that I live by, if its not broke dont fix it ...:banghead:

 

[jackson6745]

Wes if there is a color lightening part to the Fauna Marin Ultralith System like zeo Spur2, I would stop using it. Plenty of people including myself use large amounts of GFO's with no problems. The combination of the GFO and whatever Fauna Marin Ultralith System you're adding (sorry not fimiliar with the additives) could be the cause.

 

[deelucky]

whats gfo? and whats its purpose?

 

[jackson6745]

whats gfo? and whats its purpose?

Stuff like phosban, removes phosphates.

 

[Deanos]

GFO

 

[deelucky]

thanks for the info and good read.

 

[Wes]

Wes if there is a color lightening part to the Fauna Marin Ultralith System like zeo Spur2, I would stop using it. Plenty of people including myself use large amounts of GFO's with no problems. The combination of the GFO and whatever Fauna Marin Ultralith System you're adding (sorry not fimiliar with the additives) could be the cause.

the dillema is i was getting amazing colors w/ fauna marin ultralith before i added GFO. I imagine the Ultralith system is pretty much the same concept as zeovit. You are probably right about it probably having something to do w/ the combination. I am going to give it a few days and see how it goes before i make my decision on what to stop using. The Fauna Marin guys say there should be no need for GFO once you achieve low nutrients...However they do recommend using GFO to get phosphate to appropriate levels before you start using the system.

I was dumping tons of mysis in back when my flame wrasse pair stayed in hiding the first two weeks i had them to make sure they got food. Now they are out and about and eating well so the feeding has gone back to normal, however I suspect the algae is the aftermath. It's weird tho, people say phosphates are bad but my colors were just sick when i got the algae bloom.

It's a tricky situation im in...

Today i upped the dosage of the UltraMin (essentially coral food) and UltraOrganic (trace element replenishment) and the SPS sucked it up and the polyps are back out in full force now. Maybe the GFO adsorbing some of the suppliments as well as phosphate and the corals were not getting enough food. I dunno.

I talked to a guy on RC who uses Prodibio who had the same response after adding GFO and he said colors bounced back in a week and he continues to use GFO w/ prodibio...

 

[jackson6745]

Wes, do you have pics when the colors were better? I'm curious what type of colors you're getting with the T5's + Ultralith system

 

[Wes]

no unfortunately i don't...i hit my color peak around the time algae started sprouting up so i wasn't very motivated to take alot of pics...

If you have ever seen Stan's tank (smcooler)?, alot of my stuff came from his tank so when my colors starting getting close to the way they looked when they were fragged from stan's tank i was getting very happy. He has an amazing tank and uses MH so naturally my frags never looked as good as they did in his tank, but i was getting somewhat close.

Then i have to go mess around and screw things up.

 

[crox99]

Hi Wes

where can I buy the fauna marin ultralith?

 

[Wes]

i believe aquariumobseesed.com is the only U.S. distributor at the moment.

 

[crox99]

Is that the place where you bought yours?

 

[DEEPWATER]

Hey Wes ,

Srry for your problem with the tank ,But i use Pura phoslock on my main tank for a about 6 months now with no problems at all ,

just a guess--->
it may have been the reaction of the GFO and the amino acid tht could of caused that bleaching .again just a guess

hope everything works out

Ronen

 

[Wes]

Is that the place where you bought yours?

yep..

Ronen, thanks for the kind words...Things have perked up a bit since yesterday so i am feeling a little better. I'm going to let it play out a bit more and see how it goes.

 

[Wes]

Just an update colors are coming back rather quickly...It must have been some initial reaction to the GFO. And things are bouncing back nicely.

 

[jhale]

Wes, I don't think it was the GFO. perhaps it was what the GFO did, removing the Po4 from the water quickly. this change could have effected the corals.

 

[Wes]

that could be the case the last time i cleaned the glass was saturday when i added the GFO...

I didn't need to clean it again until today at it wasn't a geen algae this time...it was a white/opaque film...I have no hanna so that is my gauge of saying that P04 has come down quite a bit.

 

[DEEPWATER]

gald to hear thing worked out

did you test your phosphate before and after using the GFO ??

 

[Wes]

no i have a salifert P04 test kit which is pretty much worthless never detected anything...

i used the ol eyeball test...green film on the glass every 2 days before i added GFO. 5 days after GFO and no green.

i want to get a hanna kit but that is going to have to wait a while...