phosban reactor
- Thread starter cwschoon
- Start date
jimwat
Premium Member
I wondered about that. I do not have much shade in the fuge (just turtle grass no rocks), and I have not had any problems with cyano in the main tank.jdieck said:
I am thinking about moving one of my larger rocks to the fuge that is overgrown with Athelia (that I have lost control of). But I will wait a few weeks to see how the fuge is going to react to the new lighting more long term.
jimwat
Premium Member
I was using a phosphate sponge for a while with little noticeable affects. I did not try the phosban in a flowthrough bag, but the phosban in the reactor is showing good results after a few weeks. The noticeable changes have been that the glass does not need to be cleaned as often, and the existing hair algae is turning brown and/or stopped growing. The change was slow and not that dramatic, but since I have been battling hair algae for over a year, any positive results make it easy for me to justify the cost.cwschoon said:
jdieck
New member
If you want a dramatic change Rowaphos acts a lot faster than Phosban although both have similar capacity to absorve phosphates. Phosban just takes longer.
Be careful with Rowa, It is so fast that IMO the sudden change is what creates the observed problem with coral bleaching.
Capacity absorption of Phoisgard (A lot cheaper than Phosban or Rowa) is also about the same with reaction time similar to Phosban. The disadvantage is that it has proven to release Aluminum which may affect some soft corals. Washing it in RO/DI water to remove the dusty particles significantly reduces the Aluminum release.
Be careful with Rowa, It is so fast that IMO the sudden change is what creates the observed problem with coral bleaching.
Capacity absorption of Phoisgard (A lot cheaper than Phosban or Rowa) is also about the same with reaction time similar to Phosban. The disadvantage is that it has proven to release Aluminum which may affect some soft corals. Washing it in RO/DI water to remove the dusty particles significantly reduces the Aluminum release.
jdieck
New member
Well.. time for an update on my fight with Cyano.
As per my previous (somehow long) post and two treatments with Chemi clean, the remining patches continue growing and some new patches apeared on the sand bed.
As Ozone and Chemic-clean shall have taken care of suspended Organics I started suspecting that somehow the organics shall be accumulated somewhere (Suspicion of potential DSB crash) so time for one more desperate measure.
After vaccuming out (again) all cyano that I could I connected a Mechanical filter and with a powerhead I started blowing off the dirt from the rock this time did not stopped until no more stuf was blowing away. (Took a couple of pases and about two hours).
Then the real No No. I decided to vaccum the sand bed that I could reach as deep as I could and OMG, I have seen skimmate cleaner than the stuff I pulled out. Critters and Pod will enough survive under the rock and from the fuge so I saw a little risk.
While cleaning some of the under sand stuff must have gotten out as the ORP dropped from 360 to 315 (Not Bad considering what I was doing).
Once clean I decided to go for the third tratment but this time with a full dose of Red Slime Remover.
This stuff really acts differently than the Chemi Clean. It did not affected the ORP at all like Chemi Clean but PH drop slightly, the water turned Yellow Green and of course the skimmer started foaming like if there were no tomorrow so I turned it off and waited.. and waitedd.. and waited...
24 hours the water still foamy, som elittle patches of Cyano still there and the water nasty yellow so I waited...
Next morning (48 hours) I expected to find everything belly up and bleaching when I saw the water was still yellow but man was I so wrong.
All cyano completely gone, corals expanded, fish as hungry as ever and snails grazzing around where once there was cyano and I could swear some coralline started to grow again on the aquarium walls.
Added 3 pounds of Carbon, made a 20% water change and the water was clear as ever.
One week later no sign of Cyano any more. Alkalinity had dropped from 10 to 8, either the slime remover or the increase Nitrification with all that dead cyano may have had some effect.)
Tested for Phosphates, Nitrates and Ammonia (just in case it contained Eritromicin) but no traces of either.
Did one more rock blow to remove any remining dead matter and again vaccum the sand as deep as I could. Some dirt and Skimmate like liquid still got some out but in a lot less amount.
Then another 20% water change, replaced the phosban in both reactors, replaced the carbon with 2 pounds of fresh one and cleaned the sump and the skimmer (took the time to clean the skimmer tower also and replace the bio-bolls in the ETSS.
Added 12 spoons of Bicarbonate and 12 spoons of Turbo Calcium and 500 ml of Magnessium Tech I bringing alkalinity back to 10.5 dKH, Ca to 440 ppm and Magnessium to 1275 ppm and increased Ozone to 150 Mg/hr.
I noticed some of my Cerith snails started to drop dead. Noticing that none of the ones in the fuge has suffered I could not blame the chemical but the main was now so clean that they seemed just to be starving so I transferred the reminign ones to the fuge where they seem as happy as ever.
So after a week and half of tratment:
a) No traces of Cyano.
b) Water clear, parameters stable. (No traces of Nitrate or Phosphate that was my worry)
c) Sand white as new.
d) More bristtles and other worms and critters staring to fill in as I type. (seen some new ones already)
e) Coralline growing back
f) Coral colors and coralline return to their past brightness.
g) Diatoms start growing back as fast as ever (What a pleasurable pain)
Did I win the war? amy be not and too soon to tell. I intend to continue vaccuming the sand at least monthly and depend more on the fuge unless Nitrates start showing up.
For what I saw Slime Remover is just too powerful to use regularly but Chemi-Clean might do a good "preventive Maintenance work if used may be at half does every other month.
My take of all this:
After trying all you can to get rid of Cyano use chemicals as a last resource. If you have to; try Chemi-Clean first as it seems to be the least agressive or Slime Remover at half the dose unless you have a heavy infestation then go full strenght on the remover.
I will try to keep cleaning as much as I can just in case there is still some dead stuff around and will take this "success" one week at a time.
I think I just prevented (Shall I say just postponed) a DSB crash so also my take is if I have to replace the sand, there is no damage in cleaning the one I have, some stuff will still remain under the rock enough for the DSB to be functioning and see if the Fuge takes over. In any case I more hopefull going forward.
Thanks for your patience everyone as at least for me this makes for an interesting story (at least for a reefer)..
As per my previous (somehow long) post and two treatments with Chemi clean, the remining patches continue growing and some new patches apeared on the sand bed.
As Ozone and Chemic-clean shall have taken care of suspended Organics I started suspecting that somehow the organics shall be accumulated somewhere (Suspicion of potential DSB crash) so time for one more desperate measure.
After vaccuming out (again) all cyano that I could I connected a Mechanical filter and with a powerhead I started blowing off the dirt from the rock this time did not stopped until no more stuf was blowing away. (Took a couple of pases and about two hours).
Then the real No No. I decided to vaccum the sand bed that I could reach as deep as I could and OMG, I have seen skimmate cleaner than the stuff I pulled out. Critters and Pod will enough survive under the rock and from the fuge so I saw a little risk.
While cleaning some of the under sand stuff must have gotten out as the ORP dropped from 360 to 315 (Not Bad considering what I was doing).
Once clean I decided to go for the third tratment but this time with a full dose of Red Slime Remover.
This stuff really acts differently than the Chemi Clean. It did not affected the ORP at all like Chemi Clean but PH drop slightly, the water turned Yellow Green and of course the skimmer started foaming like if there were no tomorrow so I turned it off and waited.. and waitedd.. and waited...
24 hours the water still foamy, som elittle patches of Cyano still there and the water nasty yellow so I waited...
Next morning (48 hours) I expected to find everything belly up and bleaching when I saw the water was still yellow but man was I so wrong.
All cyano completely gone, corals expanded, fish as hungry as ever and snails grazzing around where once there was cyano and I could swear some coralline started to grow again on the aquarium walls.
Added 3 pounds of Carbon, made a 20% water change and the water was clear as ever.
One week later no sign of Cyano any more. Alkalinity had dropped from 10 to 8, either the slime remover or the increase Nitrification with all that dead cyano may have had some effect.)
Tested for Phosphates, Nitrates and Ammonia (just in case it contained Eritromicin) but no traces of either.
Did one more rock blow to remove any remining dead matter and again vaccum the sand as deep as I could. Some dirt and Skimmate like liquid still got some out but in a lot less amount.
Then another 20% water change, replaced the phosban in both reactors, replaced the carbon with 2 pounds of fresh one and cleaned the sump and the skimmer (took the time to clean the skimmer tower also and replace the bio-bolls in the ETSS.
Added 12 spoons of Bicarbonate and 12 spoons of Turbo Calcium and 500 ml of Magnessium Tech I bringing alkalinity back to 10.5 dKH, Ca to 440 ppm and Magnessium to 1275 ppm and increased Ozone to 150 Mg/hr.
I noticed some of my Cerith snails started to drop dead. Noticing that none of the ones in the fuge has suffered I could not blame the chemical but the main was now so clean that they seemed just to be starving so I transferred the reminign ones to the fuge where they seem as happy as ever.
So after a week and half of tratment:
a) No traces of Cyano.
b) Water clear, parameters stable. (No traces of Nitrate or Phosphate that was my worry)
c) Sand white as new.
d) More bristtles and other worms and critters staring to fill in as I type. (seen some new ones already)
e) Coralline growing back
f) Coral colors and coralline return to their past brightness.
g) Diatoms start growing back as fast as ever (What a pleasurable pain)
Did I win the war? amy be not and too soon to tell. I intend to continue vaccuming the sand at least monthly and depend more on the fuge unless Nitrates start showing up.
For what I saw Slime Remover is just too powerful to use regularly but Chemi-Clean might do a good "preventive Maintenance work if used may be at half does every other month.
My take of all this:
After trying all you can to get rid of Cyano use chemicals as a last resource. If you have to; try Chemi-Clean first as it seems to be the least agressive or Slime Remover at half the dose unless you have a heavy infestation then go full strenght on the remover.
I will try to keep cleaning as much as I can just in case there is still some dead stuff around and will take this "success" one week at a time.
I think I just prevented (Shall I say just postponed) a DSB crash so also my take is if I have to replace the sand, there is no damage in cleaning the one I have, some stuff will still remain under the rock enough for the DSB to be functioning and see if the Fuge takes over. In any case I more hopefull going forward.
Thanks for your patience everyone as at least for me this makes for an interesting story (at least for a reefer)..
my phosban reactor has been running for about 6 months and has eliminated my hair and cyano problem. my 180 has many fish which are fed often so the reactor has done wonders. I change the phosban every 2 months or so, when the cyano starts to reappear.I use a gravity siphon to feed the reactor which sits on the bottom of my 30 gal sump.The flow from the 3/8 line was too strong so a splitter was added to the end . This diverted some of the flow to a carbon chamber. A ball valve could also be used. Not sure why most use a powerhead when gravity is free and most of all maintainence free. Make sure the siphon is at the proper height as to not overflow the sump in a power outage. I wasnt comfortable hanging the unit, my friends was hanging and the supply hose somehow disconnected he had a flood. Mine sits on the bottom of the sump no chance for a flood.
Bax
Premium Member
jdieck
Thanks for the report. It's comforting to think that something, even if it's WMD-like in fashion, just might work on cyano.
My PhosBan Reactor has been up for just over two weeks now. There is no dramatic effect, but the cyano is slowing down. Of course, my MH bulb blew out and the new one arrives tomorow so I am expecting a return of the cyano to its full glory once the MH starts burning in again.
So I am planning to go WMD as well. I picked up some Kent's PolyOx and couldn't find the Red Slime Remover. I'll search for the RSR this weekend. I added a new fish a few weeks ago and I like to keep the UV sterizer running at a germacidal pace for three to four weeks after a new addition. It is fed by my carbon canister so I don't want to take the UV off line just yet. I figure the cyano isn't going anywhere so I have plenty of time to plan my revenge.
Thanks for the report. It's comforting to think that something, even if it's WMD-like in fashion, just might work on cyano.
My PhosBan Reactor has been up for just over two weeks now. There is no dramatic effect, but the cyano is slowing down. Of course, my MH bulb blew out and the new one arrives tomorow so I am expecting a return of the cyano to its full glory once the MH starts burning in again.
So I am planning to go WMD as well. I picked up some Kent's PolyOx and couldn't find the Red Slime Remover. I'll search for the RSR this weekend. I added a new fish a few weeks ago and I like to keep the UV sterizer running at a germacidal pace for three to four weeks after a new addition. It is fed by my carbon canister so I don't want to take the UV off line just yet. I figure the cyano isn't going anywhere so I have plenty of time to plan my revenge.
All you have to do is turn off skimmer, take out carbon, drop in some EM. Wait 24 hrs, do a water change, put carbon/resin back in and problem solved. After that, just make sure water perams stay fine and lighting is good. Also, you should not dose calcium and buffer at the same time.
Chemi- Clean and red slime remover are aggressive and do not work as well as EM. No chemicals are good and you will not find what is in RS remover....or I never could. Do a search on cyanobacteria and you will find the answer to every conceivable question you have related to red slime. If your water perams are good, your lighting is good, you use a skimmer and do regular water changes, you won't get cyano outbreaks. If you have cyano and can syphon it out, great. If not, just wipe it out with EM and be done with it. So some benificial bacteria dies too...no big deal as long as you have a stable system.
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