How much Rowaphos to safely use...

[sahin]

Hi there peoples. Last week I filled my phosphate reactor with 60grams Rowaphos and 50grams Fluval carbon because I have some hair algae in my sps tank. Tank is 47G.

Within a two days I had one SPS frag RTN, luckily I managed to save a tiny frag of it which is doing fine. Another sps started to STN, but lost only a tiny amount of tissue around one branch.

I immediately took the reactor offline and have let things recover. However the hair algae is getting bad.

I have 0.2 nitrates; used to have much much higher, but it's dealt with now.

Phosphates used to be 0.1ppm, it's down to 0.05ppm, but the hair algae persists.

I use API and Salifert to measure nitrate and Hanna ULR Phosphorus meter.

Maybe I used too much Carbon?

This time I intend to only use Rowaphos. No Carbon.

For a 47G tank what is a safe amount of Rowaphos to use in a reactor? - I have 25 SPS frags which are very nice and don't want to lose.

Many thanks.

 

[shiladitya1991]

With the introduction of iron based phosphate removers in the hobby the rate of STN in corals has also increased. Anyways it is because of using too much Rowa too sudden. Always start with 1/4 of the recommended dosage and ramp up little by little over months.

 

[toothman]

i agree any change too quick is enough to stn acros.

 

[acroholicreefer]

Most of the issues from GFO happens when dust from the GFO is introduced in the tank. With Rowaphos, this stuff is fairly "wet" if I am remembering correctly. I have always had issues with stripping the nutrients too fast with this brand.

When running GFO in a system, two things should be considered. 1) The amount of GFO being used. 2) The flow rate running through the reactor. Even if you use the recommended amount of GFO, you can still strip the nutrients with too much flow. This is the reason why I run mine on a manifold. I try to maintain a slow tumble of my GFO inside the reactor.

 

[shiladitya1991]

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=419143

Here is a thread by Joe when he first started to use Rowa.

 

[sahin]

Just thought I'd update this thread for the purposes of helping others; following ceasure of the phosphate reactor containing the above mentioned amount of GFO and GAC, I had no further STN, other than what is mentioned on my initial post. Due to the hair algae and brown dusting appearing on my rocks and glass, I resumed running Rowaphos a couple of days ago. I used placed 40grams in my reactor. I did not use any GAC this time because I suspected that overuse of GAC may have been the cause of STN previously. Well, its been two days and so far everything appears fine. Phosphate level in the tank is now at 0.02ppm. I also added extra snails and hermits and the hair algae and brown dusting is now minimal.

 

[shiladitya1991]

Thats great news. Happy Reefing.

 

[fishguy597]

I never run more then half of what they recommend for gfo .

I thought that you shouldn't run carbon and gfo in the same reactor due to the tumbling. The carbon is soft and breaks apart. Then it goes back into your tank along with any organics it absorbed.