Kill off your algae in about 3 months.

[Sk8r]

No, fluidize as much as possible of the bed, get it to seethe and heave, but not fly off in bits. That's the most efficient, giving the water contact with as many sides of every pellet possible.

 

[Sk8r]

Re the question above: [we are constantly adding phosphate to our tanks]---actually hardly any if you use ro/di, have well-conditioned rock, and don't overfeed: the amount in most fishfood is very small. Helps, of course, if you have a fuge to take up any slight appearance thereof. The two situations which do add a bit more phosphate than usual are feeding a flock of tangs or the like on seaweed, or using a lot of Phyto for some exotic inverts.

Some tanks have rock that continues to leach out phosphate for an extended time: this can be a bit of a pita, but this too shall pass---eventually it runs out of phosphate.

 

[ryeguyy84]

I most likely overfeed, I have a very ornery clown that likes to attack other fish when he's hungry. keeping him well fed stops his aggression. Unless a fish swims by his trumpet coral, then all bets are off

 

[Sk8r]

Lol---I've met that clown, and her mate!

 

[Reef Frog]

Although my algae situation is quite manageable, it will reappear if I slack on changing the GFO. Some say "replace it every 4 weeks". Well, that may or may not be enough depending on the individual tank in question. It's possible that the GFO gets exhausted much earlier giving the pest algae plenty of time to recover. When folks say "GFO didn't work for me" I think in many cases this is the reason. I've been able to almost completely eradicate GHA & Bryopsis thanks to GFO. Bubble Algae seems to be resistant although I've found growth can be slowed by keeping on top of changing the GFO, giving physical removal a chance to work. While using GFO during a pest algae outbreak, simultaneous removal, detrius control, good skimming & judicious feeding will all contribute to your efforts.

 

[Dan_P]

I am a card carrying member of the Sk8r fan club and wanted to add a perspective that might be enjoyed if you are into "rocket science"

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 thrmough rock: but move it does.

Live rocks are surprising porous and contain pores and channels that can provide a lot of surface area for bacteria to grow. Particularly long channels can become devoid of oxygen and are good environments bacteria to convert nitrate to nitrogen. The total volume of these channels, however, is very small. These channels cannot contain much phosphate. Live rocks do contain a lot of living things, including bacterial communities, that can die off during cycling and release phosphate or organophosphates. Organophosphates are metabolized by living bacteria to produce phosphate. If this happens inside the channels, it takes quite some time for the phosphate molecules to diffuse out of the rocks. Organisms living near these channel exits receive a slow steady supply of nutrients. The phosphate leakage followed by consumption may be balanced such that the amount of phosphate in the water is below the detection limit of a test kit.

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.[\QUOTE]

Flow Is Absolutely Critical For GFO
GFO is a heavy granular solid. Because of the small size of the GFO granuales, water does not flow easily among these granules. All the phosphate absorbing happens at the surface of these granules. If the water is not passing by all the surfaces of all the granules because the GFO sits in the sump as a motionless pile, GFO cannot remove phosphates. Hence the need for a reactor

How Much GFO
If you do not have antibodies to arithmetic, it is simple to figure out how much GFO you need to bring phosphate levels to "0". By measuring the ppm of phophate in the system and having an estimate of the total water volume in the system, calculate the total amount of phosphate in the system

Total milligrams of PO4 in system = gallons in system X 3.7 X ppm

Kilograms of GFO needed = miiligrams of phosphate in system / 2500

GFO absorbs about 2.5 grams of phosphate per kilogram of GFO. And when used in a reactor it will absorb this amount in a couple days. The size of the reactor is not as important as keeping it charged with active GFO as soon as the GFO becomes exhausted. A small reactor will need to be charged more often than a large one and may work a a little more slowly, but it will do the job. So, regular testing is necessary. Weekly phosphate testing is a sufficient when bringing down levels of phosphate.

A word on colorimetric tests. Once the the phosphate levels become small, it will be very difficult to estimate a ppm value for phosphate. This won't matter if your goal is to drive phosphate levels very low. Here's how.

Once the test solution color level becomes paler than the last color sample on the color chart, say 0.03 ppm for the Salifert test, you have to start comparing the color to a blank. This will require you to do a very careful, side by side comparison of the test solution and a sample of aquarium water, preferrably in an identical container with the same volume as the test solution. This is the only way to judge that phosphate levels are ultra low. If you see even a hint of blue, keep using GFO. When the blue color is no longer evident, you can stop adding fresh GFO until the weekly test shows the slightest hint of blue. Ask a friend to help judge the color or mix up the containers and see if you can tell which is the blank and which is the test solution.

[\QUOTE]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.

Algae can be fast growing or slow and steady growing and that is what gives us a chance to selectively kill off the fast growing species. Fast growing species need to have a lot of nutrients to grow quickly where as the the slow and steady growth types have metabolisms that can deal with sparse quantites of nutrients. Unfortunately, fast growing algae do not need very much phosphate. And if you recall the possibility of phosphates being supplied locally by live rock and understand that a "0" ppm by a colorimetric test for phosphate does not mean no phosphates, you can begin to see why nuissance algae growth may not come to a swift and sudden end.

So, patience and persistence, the algae will disappear.

 

[ryeguyy84]

So, patience and persistence, the algae will disappear.

^^^This. I used to worry about the little tuft of hair algae that popped up in my new tank, after a while everything (with good care) seems to balance out. While a bubble or 2 may occasionally appear eventually it will pass.

Algae may come on quick but getting rid of it takes "Patience and persistence". . . and beer :beer: