Nutrient level in SPS tank

[SPSEMPIRE]

you're changing out your gfo and rox fairly quickly.

ditto. One of the biggest problems of running gfo is that people don't tend to rinse it off before putting it in their reactor. The dust and fine particles get's in the water column, eliminating the zooplankton, which is not the goal.

I use a BRS dual reactor. When I add new GFO, I usually pull the reactor's return tubing so that it drains into the sink. I usually put about a gallon of the aquarium water down the drain and replace it with fresh salt water.

Although the amount of GFO you use is important to measure, I have always felt that the amount of flow going through the reactor is more important. Make sure that your GFO is only tumbling, not being blown all around in the reactor. You want the GFO to almost do a dance vs looking like money in a money machine.

 

[dzhuo]

Yup. I pretty much follow all these standard GFO procedures. On top of that, I ran 100 micron socks for 48 hours per every water change. When the socks are in, I stick the reactor's output inside the socks so there is no chance of any power or dust entering my tank.

After 48 hours, all socks are removed.

I am going to take everyone's recommendation and change 2 things:

1. I will take the reactor offline.
2. I will vinegar bath the skimmer to remove any oil that might have built up in the last few months.

I will do them this weekend and report back result the following weeks.

 

[Alex T.]

GFO and ROX could probably strip that tank faster than a skimmer. By the time the oils break down from the frozen foods being fed the skimmer may not have a chance to build a foam head. This could be a very good thing, however long term could get very expensive at the pace you change it out.

Certain foods shut my skimmer down before and I will no longer feed them. Krill, any kind of squid or "reef food" is so rich in oils that my skimmer coated the inside and was terrible. I didn't pull skimmate for at least 2 weeks, but those oily foods didn't have another great export means so an algae outbreak ensued. When I broke the skimmer down and scrubbed it clean it broke in again and worked like new. Hey...you never know.

 

[dzhuo]

Guys,
If I were to keep the reactor but remove either ROX or GFO, which one should I remove? I think eventually, I want to take the whole thing off-line but I want to go slower. I want to remove one of the 2 medias first, observe it for a week and then go from there.

So which one to go: ROX or GFO?

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

If you are looking to take one of the two off than I defiantly would, without a doubt, take the GFO offline. Personally, I run carbon 24/7 and it helps trap any GFO that might be in suspension. With carbon, you are only removing the excess impurities. HTH.

 

[wdt2000]

I would not worry about that algae/bacteria on your Tunze. I have all sorts growing on my eco techs, some seem to thrive in these very high flow areas. I always run carbon but only use GFO when there is a problem. I think the best steps you can take are to keep things stable. Also another point, my skimmer sometimes goes a few weeks before filling the cup. I don't see this as a problem at all.

 

[mike810]

yeah but you go for weeks until your cup fills. He goes for months without seeing a drop of skimmate inside the cup.


I'd take the GFO offline first since you believe to be low in nutrients.

Leave the rox online in case there is some type of contaminant in your water.

 

[Alex T.]

I personally think you're fine. You did add more fish, but quite honestly I think your liverock, the ROX and GFO are really beating your skimmer to the tank of building a foam head. My take on feeding has always been this....if I feed a few fish x quantity of food, they may poop and pee y amount, which may not be that much per fish. They all have individual nutritional requirements. Case in point...if I had 15 damsels in a 200 gallon tank that I fed 2 cubes of mysis per day they may barely poop. If I fed the same amount to a full grown Emperor Angel in the same volume of water he's definitely going to pollute the water more and make my skimmer work.

I know this may sound crazy but I went on vacation and left my tank sitting to a friend. He was scared to death so I knew he did everything I asked to the letter and then some. At the time I was feeding 3 cubes a day in a 150 gallon tank to 3 tangs and some anthias. My normal skimmate production was about a gallon per week. He obviously cpouldn't come every day so i had him feed the 3 normal cubes every other day. When I had returned, I saw that my skimmer had barely lined the bottom of my cup in 7 days. Needless to say, I think your corals are efficiently taking up the available nutrients and that the carbon and gfo are working wonders. Unless you add some large pooping fish to pollute the water a little, your skimmer may not need to work.

How fortunate you are to have a skimmer working in case of emergency instead of the rest of us who can't afford to have it shut down for a few days! If anything, I would take the GFO offline for now and see if your corals color up even more and extend their polyps. I really think you have nothing to worry about though.

 

[Alex T.]

dzhuo,

Just for kicks I put GFO back in my BRS Dual Reactor about an hour ago. I made sure that I rinsed it thoroughly in RODI water to get the fines out. Not only is my ETSS skimmer not forming a foam head...it's not even creating the bubbles necessary to rise up into the tower. This has happened to me before but I wanted to make sure it caused the same problem. If at all possible....take the GFO offline and rinse the reactor thoroughly with RODI water. Remove the carbon as well. Then take out your skimmer....disassemble it and give it a vinegar bath. Let your tank run skimmerless for a few hours and if you have filter socks on your drain lines put a new pair on to catch all the fines that I can almost guarantee are in your water and causing friction on the interior of the skimmer. Within a few hours you'll notice that your socks are almost black from all the residue left over in your water.

After you remove the filter socks install the skimmer. Chances are you'll have skimmate tomorrow.

Good luck.

 

[dzhuo]

OK. So it's official. I took GFO offline but kept the ROX. The skimmer and reactor pump are still bathing in vinegar solution. I intend to left them there over night and put everything back up tomorrow morning. I also carefully examine the skimmer pump and notice there is a very thin layer of calcium deposit but doesn't seem to affect performance at all. I also checked the air line and venturi and make sure there is nothing blocking it. The skimmer should be clean tomorrow. One thing I actually kind of surprise to find out is that I do seem to have a bit of GFO residue among the reactor pump intake. It seems like even I carfully rinse the GFO and use filter socks to catch any left over for 48 hours, some do escape. I won't be suprise if some of them made it to the tank but I would't know how much.

Also done 10% water change.

I will report back in a week. Wish me luck.

 

[Alex T.]

Good luck brother:thumbsup:

I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. Even when rinsed, if the flow is a touch too high through the reactor there's a lot of friction that can cause the GFO to fragment into smaller pieces. Personally I think GFO is more trouble than it's worth.

Now I have to soak my skimmer and let the filter socks do their job just because I was trying to prove a point!:lolspin:

 

[dzhuo]

Hey Alex,
You added GFO and your skimmer stop within a hour? Has it recover yet? Since GFO is so popular these days, I would think if it affects skimmer this bad, we would have heard lots of complain. Interestingly, I have never heard such a break down (and I have read lots of threads in RC over the years).

Maybe you should take it to Randy or Boomer to see why? Even Randy or Boomer's article of GFO didn't mention anything affecting the skimmer. Since GFO is suppose to take out only phosphate, I will be very surprise that it strips the water of all organics that skimmers are capable of pulling - to a point rendering a skimmer useless.

 

[mike810]

FWIW I use to run HC GFO and ROX 24/7 before taking the GFO offline to put pellets in. My skimmer ran just fine with GFO.

 

[Alex T.]

Remember that I run a large downdraft skimmer. If any foreign material happens to coat the bioballs the skimmer will shut down indefinitely. I can't feed Oyster Feast either. It cats the bioballs and and the inside of the black box under the skimmer. The skimmer can take weeks to break down and process the oils. I took the skimmer offline this morning before work and soaked it in warm ro water vith vinegar. I'll try it again tonight after work. I also put filter socks on my drains last night and sure enough....residue from the GFO and carbon had colored the sock overnight.

I know that Mike 810 reports that he's never had problems with running GFO, but maybe he's using Phosban or some other media. The stuff from BRS is like dirt from the desert, loaded with powder and fines. I'll report back tonight after I've thoroughly rinsded it out.

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

I actually like the BRS but it is not the strongest stuff out there, which isn't a bad thing IMO. Make sure to use the pellets too, as they help out a ton.

 

[mike810]

I run BRS HC GFO and ROX. But I rinse them through the reactor every time I do a WC. I run about 10 Gallons through the medias to rinse it off completely.

I stopped using new gfo few months ago. I started to regenerate my old GFO which made rinsing it off quite easy since it had been rinsed before but that's for another thread.

But I do agree that if you do not rinse brs gfo well. Your water will run brown and it will leave something behind. That's why I run 10 gallons through it, that's how much it takes to make the water run clear from the reactors.

 

[dzhuo]

You run 10g through the GFO?!? I use about 1g and I use a glass cup to carefully exam the water and making sure there is nothing in the glass cup before declare clean. On top of that, I use 100 micro filter socks and always stick the output of the reactor inside it to catch whatever is left over.

Apparently, with all this it's still not perfect. When I cleaned the hose last night, I clearly see GFO residue. Since I have been using so much GFO, I bet a fair amount of residue did in fact get into the tank. I wonder why my ROX didn't catch them tho because I have a single reactor (bottom up design) and the GFO is on the bottom half while the ROX is on the top half. All water that pass the GFO has to pass the ROX in order to leave the reactor. It seems to me either ROX isn't capable of catching them or there are just so much of them that it exhaust the ROX quickly.

 

[mike810]

yes I run anywhere from 5-10 gallons through it, depends how big a water change I'm doing. You run it through 1G and the water is clear to you? I run it through at leat 5 gallons before I see it really start to clear up. The extra 5 gallons is just for the heck of it since I'm doing a 10G water change.

But after 5G it usually clears up, I'd like to run 10G through it always if I could. I feel it cleans off the GFO and ROX better. I know when I don't rinse it well, my skimmate will turn a RUST color from the GFO or turn a BLACK color from the ROX.

 

[dzhuo]

You run it through 1G and the water is clear to you?

Yup and this is the BRS GFO. I normally run it through a bucket first and once I notice the bucket is clear, I switch to a glass cup and run it cup by cup. I carefully exam the water in the cup to make sure there is nothing I can see. Once everything is clear, I stick the output of the reactor inside a 100 micron sock and run the sock for 48 hours. After that, the sock is removed.

I thought with all these, there is no way any GFO can leave the reactor (especially it has to pass through a whole section of brand new ROX). Apparently, I am wrong.

 

[moo0o]

Isn't that a waste of carbon if before you even drop it in your tank, the fines of the GFO are already coating your carbon?