Phosphate reactor question

[khangho05]

Hi mates,

I just found the phosphates in my tank is too high at 1.00. Is anything to do to bring down the phosphates? I know I have been using tap water and recently I installed my RO/DI system and need to bring down the phosphate. I have been doing water change once a week 20% for the last 3 weeks but phosphate level still high.
Is phosphate reactor good to use to bring down the level?? I am looking at Phosban reactor 150. It is cheap and good review.
TIA.

Khang.

 

[shifty51008]

a phosban reactor is a good way to reduce P04, just remember you will go through alot of media at 1st, prob. have to change it out every couple of days till your P04 drops to 0 after it gets to 0 though then it should last a few weeks or so, your test kits will tell you when to keep changing it out, I usually just change mine every month.

 

[khangho05]

a phosban reactor is a good way to reduce P04, just remember you will go through alot of media at 1st, prob. have to change it out every couple of days till your P04 drops to 0 after it gets to 0 though then it should last a few weeks or so, your test kits will tell you when to keep changing it out, I usually just change mine every month.

Thanks for quick help Shifty. Is PhosBan media good? Is a quick drop in PO4 bad bad for coral??

 

[shifty51008]

i have never used phosban so can't say how well it works personally, but I know others that like it. I use bulk reef supply media.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store...k-gfo-granular-ferric-oxide-phosphate-remover

yes dropping to quickly is not a good thing so only start out with half the ammount of media it tells you to.

 

[trinidiver]

I have a 200+gal reef tank and my phosphates was pretty high (cant remember the figures). I ended up placing a rock in my tank that had some little plant growth and thought my 5 tangs (2 hippo, 1 yellow, 1 sailfin & 1 powder brown) would eat it, well so i thought!!! In a few wks the algae had become a pest and had spread all over the tank- to about 60% of my rocks. It was about an inch thick and i would have to manually peel it off my rocks every week (took over an hr). I have 12 T5's running 8-10 hrs/day and this was making this plant literally take over my tank. I tried lights out for some days, then cut light hrs down to 4 hrs but that affected my corals. So i hooked up a phosbhan reactor (two little fishies) and put in some media. In 3ks the lush green plants were turning brown and dying off. I replaced the media with new, and ran that for an additional 2wks and took out whatever plant i could take out by hand. By this time, most of it had died but it still had some nutrients in the water that was regenerating some new spores. I then took it to another level and changed out the media to ROWAphos and within a wk, the tank was plant and algae free........ everything was dead. My phosphate reading was undetectable and i ran that for another mth and put in a new batch of ROWAphos. That was since november, i still run it to this day and my tank is still algae and plant free. My phosphates are still undetectable. My light run 8hrs daily.

 

[trinidiver]

pic of the growth