GFO.
USING it, however, is a little bit of rocket science.
Here's what to consider.
Some tanks have phosphate because they didn't use ro/di in setup and it got in from city water. This will go on accumulating while non-ro/di is being used.
Some tanks have phosphate after several months of being fine because it soaked out of their rock and sand and there was a good load of it. It will take several months to soak out entirely---because water doesn't move real fast through rock: but move it does.
SO. You get GFO in a jar. There's a sock with it, so you could just put it in your water flow---but this only works with real tiny tanks, because most of it is compacted in the sock and about as effective as another rock.
Best deal is a reactor. They come in the 200 gram size and the 750 gram size. The jars of medium are 150 grams. Go figure.
WASH the medium: clams don't like the dust and probably corals don't.
Then install 150 to 200 grams of the medium in the small reactor and as much as you want to run, up to 750 grams, in the large reactor.
The small reactor is effective, they say, for up to 150 gallons of tank water counting sump; but honestly, this depends on how bad your algae is. If real bad, 150 grams per 50 gallons of tank water. This means if you have a 100 gallon tank, you need the big reactor. And if you have a 300 gallon tank with a major, major problem, well, you may need more than one reactor to get this solved. I think the company is trying to help you do this economically---but if you really want it to work fast, your best answer is pushing water past medium more often.
Second, don't pack the reactor and have a big enough pump driving it. The reactor does you no good if the medium is lying still. This is supposed to be a fluidized bed, meaning 3/4 of the medium should be stirring about constantly, just floating around and turning over constantly, clear to the bottom, with definite movement in the upper 3/4 of the pile of medium.
Get a 30 gph pump for the 150 gram reactor or a 40 gph pump for the larger one. And be sure you're getting that circulation.
GFO will never release the phosphate it sucks up. But it doesn't turn colors to advise you it's 'full up' and canna take anymore.
Therefore---change it out and toss the old away the first month. Maybe the second. Maybe the third.
One miraculous week thereafter, the algae in the tank will hit a sudden scarcity of what they need, and die. it happens quite suddenly, over a matter of days.
Will it hurt your cheato moss in your fuge? Nope. Won't. Dunno what that stuff likes, but it's not going to die.
At the point you're rid of the phosphate, you can pretty well shut down your reactor(s) and put them away against a time of need, or sell them on---with no moving parts, they tend to be pretty indestructible.
Hope this helps. It's a little spendy---but it beats a crew of emerald mithrax crabs that take nips out of your fish and relying on a lot of hermits who'd much rather eat fish poo, sea hares that won't eat anything and then die, or urchins that just move too slow and don't get the crevices. Unfortunately there's no way to give job instructions to critters.
But you can rely on the GFO.
USING it, however, is a little bit of rocket science.
Here's what to consider.
Some tanks have phosphate because they didn't use ro/di in setup and it got in from city water. This will go on accumulating while non-ro/di is being used.
Some tanks have phosphate after several months of being fine because it soaked out of their rock and sand and there was a good load of it. It will take several months to soak out entirely---because water doesn't move real fast through rock: but move it does.
SO. You get GFO in a jar. There's a sock with it, so you could just put it in your water flow---but this only works with real tiny tanks, because most of it is compacted in the sock and about as effective as another rock.
Best deal is a reactor. They come in the 200 gram size and the 750 gram size. The jars of medium are 150 grams. Go figure.
WASH the medium: clams don't like the dust and probably corals don't.
Then install 150 to 200 grams of the medium in the small reactor and as much as you want to run, up to 750 grams, in the large reactor.
The small reactor is effective, they say, for up to 150 gallons of tank water counting sump; but honestly, this depends on how bad your algae is. If real bad, 150 grams per 50 gallons of tank water. This means if you have a 100 gallon tank, you need the big reactor. And if you have a 300 gallon tank with a major, major problem, well, you may need more than one reactor to get this solved. I think the company is trying to help you do this economically---but if you really want it to work fast, your best answer is pushing water past medium more often.
Second, don't pack the reactor and have a big enough pump driving it. The reactor does you no good if the medium is lying still. This is supposed to be a fluidized bed, meaning 3/4 of the medium should be stirring about constantly, just floating around and turning over constantly, clear to the bottom, with definite movement in the upper 3/4 of the pile of medium.
Get a 30 gph pump for the 150 gram reactor or a 40 gph pump for the larger one. And be sure you're getting that circulation.
GFO will never release the phosphate it sucks up. But it doesn't turn colors to advise you it's 'full up' and canna take anymore.
Therefore---change it out and toss the old away the first month. Maybe the second. Maybe the third.
One miraculous week thereafter, the algae in the tank will hit a sudden scarcity of what they need, and die. it happens quite suddenly, over a matter of days.
Will it hurt your cheato moss in your fuge? Nope. Won't. Dunno what that stuff likes, but it's not going to die.
At the point you're rid of the phosphate, you can pretty well shut down your reactor(s) and put them away against a time of need, or sell them on---with no moving parts, they tend to be pretty indestructible.
Hope this helps. It's a little spendy---but it beats a crew of emerald mithrax crabs that take nips out of your fish and relying on a lot of hermits who'd much rather eat fish poo, sea hares that won't eat anything and then die, or urchins that just move too slow and don't get the crevices. Unfortunately there's no way to give job instructions to critters.
But you can rely on the GFO.
