What is the Best Phosphate Remover
- Thread starter Quang
- Start date
- Location
- Wallingford, CT
Phosban or Rowaphos with an reactor.
I think anyone who has it will tell you phosban in a reactor. You can get the reactor from Tony (reefexotics) for around $35 and $18 for a can of phosban which should last well over a year in your size tank.
Great product. I feed my fish all the time so my phosphates got very high. Within 24 hours, it brought me right down to acceptable levels and it continued to bring down phosphates for several days after that. I changed the media once and PO4 is now not reading on my test kits.
Great product. I feed my fish all the time so my phosphates got very high. Within 24 hours, it brought me right down to acceptable levels and it continued to bring down phosphates for several days after that. I changed the media once and PO4 is now not reading on my test kits.
- Location
- South Richmond Hill, Queens
does no phosphates = no algae..?
clipping from another board via Steve Weast.
Phosphate....my take on things
In light of recent events and interest, I thought that I would post a few of my ideas on this sometimes confusing subject.
Phosphate in the ocean is limiting...meaning that everyone wants it and it is in short supply....however, in our closed systems, phosphate builds and builds until it can become toxic to some of the delicate creatures that we are now trying to keep.
Now, this toxic level is different for each tank as the phosphate level is a function of how much phosphate we put in our tanks... and we put alot of phosphate in...fish food... additives... some carbons... some salts..etc. It just keeps building. To confound us even more, our tanks (when new) have an enormous capacity to bind (store) phosphate. The liverock and sand can alone hold alot of phosphate as it binds readily to calcium carbonate/limestone. But, it has a limit...and when it reaches that limit.. it will leach it back into the tank...and eventually crash the tank....sometimes refered to as "old tank syndrome". It also is usually dismissed as one of those "things that happen and oh well..."
So...what to do... well that's different for each tank...I'll give you two examples...
First... there is,what I consider, to be one of the most extraordinary examples of an SPS reef at my LFS. It has been set up for going on eight years now with minimal maintenance and no refugium...how is that possible when the rest of us have phosphate/algae problems ??? The answer is that it is primarily a coral tank with only a few emaciated small fish and very few inputs (food). The phosphate inputs are very small... and the sand and liverock are just storing the small amount that is put in... eventually this tank too.. will have problems... it will just take longer. He could avoid this date with destiny if he were to just have something that removes the phosphate (a reactor or a refugium).
Second... there is another tank in London (David Saxby) that is huge...maybe 2500gal (this tank is also detailed in Mike Palettas book). This tank is chocked full of corals and over 300 fish...and as a result, he feeds softball sizes of food. How is this tank surviving??? The answer is that he uses vast amounts of Rowaphos to export the phosphate.
The moral is... this is all an input/export hobby that we are in. Our tanks cannot process the nutrients as the ocean can...and as a result, what goes in..must come out..if we are to succeed. Everyone must decide how they will balance this equation... for some it might be limit inputs and have no fish and a small refugium for nutrient export...for others, it might be removing as much waste as possible. The answer for my system has been the later since I wanted alot of phosphate pooping fish... which means attacking the phosphate on multiple fronts.. limit inputs (without starving the fish), phosphate reactor, sand vacuuming, etc.
I hope that this long winded post will serve to clarify a topic that is often confussing...at least from point of view.
Phosphate....my take on things
In light of recent events and interest, I thought that I would post a few of my ideas on this sometimes confusing subject.
Phosphate in the ocean is limiting...meaning that everyone wants it and it is in short supply....however, in our closed systems, phosphate builds and builds until it can become toxic to some of the delicate creatures that we are now trying to keep.
Now, this toxic level is different for each tank as the phosphate level is a function of how much phosphate we put in our tanks... and we put alot of phosphate in...fish food... additives... some carbons... some salts..etc. It just keeps building. To confound us even more, our tanks (when new) have an enormous capacity to bind (store) phosphate. The liverock and sand can alone hold alot of phosphate as it binds readily to calcium carbonate/limestone. But, it has a limit...and when it reaches that limit.. it will leach it back into the tank...and eventually crash the tank....sometimes refered to as "old tank syndrome". It also is usually dismissed as one of those "things that happen and oh well..."
So...what to do... well that's different for each tank...I'll give you two examples...
First... there is,what I consider, to be one of the most extraordinary examples of an SPS reef at my LFS. It has been set up for going on eight years now with minimal maintenance and no refugium...how is that possible when the rest of us have phosphate/algae problems ??? The answer is that it is primarily a coral tank with only a few emaciated small fish and very few inputs (food). The phosphate inputs are very small... and the sand and liverock are just storing the small amount that is put in... eventually this tank too.. will have problems... it will just take longer. He could avoid this date with destiny if he were to just have something that removes the phosphate (a reactor or a refugium).
Second... there is another tank in London (David Saxby) that is huge...maybe 2500gal (this tank is also detailed in Mike Palettas book). This tank is chocked full of corals and over 300 fish...and as a result, he feeds softball sizes of food. How is this tank surviving??? The answer is that he uses vast amounts of Rowaphos to export the phosphate.
The moral is... this is all an input/export hobby that we are in. Our tanks cannot process the nutrients as the ocean can...and as a result, what goes in..must come out..if we are to succeed. Everyone must decide how they will balance this equation... for some it might be limit inputs and have no fish and a small refugium for nutrient export...for others, it might be removing as much waste as possible. The answer for my system has been the later since I wanted alot of phosphate pooping fish... which means attacking the phosphate on multiple fronts.. limit inputs (without starving the fish), phosphate reactor, sand vacuuming, etc.
I hope that this long winded post will serve to clarify a topic that is often confussing...at least from point of view.
Here is some more:
I would like to add one more thing... this phosphate thing also presents problems to the aquarist because it is so hard to test for. Phosphate ( inorganic...our inputs) is so in demand that it is immediately grabbed by everyone...hair algae, liverock, bacteria, the sand, the fish...and is locked up (organic phosphate). Our test kits can only detect what's in the water... not what is locked up in something else. Only when that something else dies...algae, bacteria, fish, etc does that phosphate get released back into the water... and the mad dash starts again. This is the reason that folks can have a hair algae problem and test zero for phosphates.
Now, folks that harvest macro algae are removing the phosphates with each harvest...good... but, does it equal what's going in ?? that's the hard part to determine. It's one of the reasons that I've gone to a reactor...which is in essence.. another predator looking to eat phosphate... only he never releases it back into the system because he never dies...he only gets full.. The only hard part is to tell when the reactor has absorbed all that he can.... nothing is easy, is it ? The reactor just sits there waiting for phosphate to hit the water...like when something dies or food is put in... and some bacteria have a life span of just 12 hours....so, phosphate is always coming and going. The idea is for the reactor to out compete the algaes...the same concept as a refugium and macro export.
Phosphate is in constant flux in our tanks...it's being released...then absorbed... the trick is to control this equation and not let it control us with unwanted hair algae ... or worse
I would like to add one more thing... this phosphate thing also presents problems to the aquarist because it is so hard to test for. Phosphate ( inorganic...our inputs) is so in demand that it is immediately grabbed by everyone...hair algae, liverock, bacteria, the sand, the fish...and is locked up (organic phosphate). Our test kits can only detect what's in the water... not what is locked up in something else. Only when that something else dies...algae, bacteria, fish, etc does that phosphate get released back into the water... and the mad dash starts again. This is the reason that folks can have a hair algae problem and test zero for phosphates.
Now, folks that harvest macro algae are removing the phosphates with each harvest...good... but, does it equal what's going in ?? that's the hard part to determine. It's one of the reasons that I've gone to a reactor...which is in essence.. another predator looking to eat phosphate... only he never releases it back into the system because he never dies...he only gets full.. The only hard part is to tell when the reactor has absorbed all that he can.... nothing is easy, is it ? The reactor just sits there waiting for phosphate to hit the water...like when something dies or food is put in... and some bacteria have a life span of just 12 hours....so, phosphate is always coming and going. The idea is for the reactor to out compete the algaes...the same concept as a refugium and macro export.
Phosphate is in constant flux in our tanks...it's being released...then absorbed... the trick is to control this equation and not let it control us with unwanted hair algae ... or worse
- Location
- Ossining, NY
I keep my RO?DI dialed in and use a fuge - never use a reactor, and get awesome polyp extension. Fuge has a RDSB, tons of chaeto and live rock
House
House
- Location
- Forest Hills
good info dru
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