phosphate problem - help!

[celticreefer85]

hey guys,

so i went to my LFS and found out my phosphates were at a level of .64 which is very high. I wanted to see opinions/ hear experience from people who have needed to lower phosphates. the options i were given was a phosphate reactor or use a phosphate pad. i went with the more economical apporach, the pad. are these effective? is it worth it to go with the phosphate reactor or is using the pad going to be enough?? Thanks

[Metal7fold22]

i would also like to know that also im deciding between the reactor or pad....

[Chris27]

A reactor is a little better, simply because you can pack it full of media. It's not necessarily a reactor, but a fluidized bed filter, in that water flows up and through the media, making most use of it. You can pack it with carbon, GFO/Phosphate media, or any other type of media you need to run - in the long run it's really a handy piece of gear to have on any tank.

[Sohal Tang Tim]

I highly recommend the economical Two Little Fishies Phosban Reactor 150.
They are cheap and work! The GFO from Bulk Reef Supply is good stuff to
put in them to help fight and reduce phosphate.



Good luck,


Tim

p.s. also...a refugium loaded with cheato will help reduce phosphate too.
You cannot really have enough ways to fight this bad algae feeding culprit
sometimes. I recommend you use both methods!

[nmbeg]

are you using RODI water? if not, it's a losing battle.

[celticreefer85]

thats the wierd part. i always uses ro/di water. not sure what caused the phosphates. i am not rinsing all my fish food with ro/di water as i was told the frozen food has some in the outer layer.

So do i run a phosphate reactor permamently or run it until the phosphates are at an appropriate level and then stop?

[eidillitih]

I run my phosphate reactor non stop. but what about simple water changes to lower them for now. Also, what is the source of the phosphate. old sand, in the rock, dead fish, too many fish? thats what I'll be trying to find out first. Cheato and Two little fishes phosban reactor would be a perfect combination

[celticreefer85]

great point. i am not sure of cause. i see no dead fish althugh i use to have a pistol shrimp which just disappeared months ago. i have been doing 10% water changes weekly. might up it to 15%. i started using the phosphate pad saturday and will see if i get any results. otherwise i am just going to go with the phosphan reactor.

Question: what is best maxijet to use with phosban reactor? 400, 600?? how much phosban do you put inside the reactor? manual says 200 max.

[gweston]

I had somewhat of a phosphate problem myself a while back. The following resolved it.

+skimmer
+added a sump with chaeto
+GFO in a sock in sump (I don't have a GFO reactor yet)
+adjusted feeding down (I was overfeeding)

I was doing a 15% water change weekly even with the phosphate problem, and it was tough to keep the phosphates down. The skimmer, GFO, and feeding adjustment made all the difference. I am now at undetectable levels.

[JTL]

PO4 is a battle for a lot of people myself included. I have no more than a low-medium fish load, a decent skimmer, cheato and I still need to run gfo and change it every couple of weeks. I do weekly water changes as well so who knows. Maybe it just takes time, my tank is only 9 months old and has quite a bit of lr.

[goochesfish]

I found my salt mix was high in phosphates. When i started running phosgaurd when mixing new water, the algae in my tank disappeared. I don't know if i got a bad lot. I will try another bucket and see if that has phosphates too. Test your RO/DI before and after mixing the salt and see if that's your source.

[celticreefer85]

thanks for all of the insight. i think i am going to try the phosban reactor. anyone have experience with it? how much phosban do you put and which maxijet would you recommend?