Re algae bloom on new tank

[Sk8r]

I wonder what would happen if, at the first blush of hair algae after cycling, indicating that phosphate is now leaching out of rock and sand---one just installed a wealth of nice efficient phosphate-grabbing-medium like Polyfilter and just kept it going until the normal 3 month long nastiness is pretty well gone. Followed, of course, with a fuge in operation, ideally, but it seems to me---why should we NOT remove phosphate, which is arriving with the rock and sand, (and tapwater startups :hammer instead of setting up newbies to the hobby to serve their time in a 3 month hair algae purgatory?

Anybody want to experiment?

 

[DoubleM 10]

i like the advice. but thats an expencive experiment.
IMO i think you need to go through the process
The reason i say so is if you take your time in the first part of the process the second part will be shorter.
now if you try and speed up the first part you will spend more time on the second.
thats just what i have learned from my job and IMO it holds true here

 

[Angel*Fish]

Here's my understanding which admittedly may be wrong - I thought the phosphate was primarily from feeding and die off and that the algae bloom uses up the phosphates at first but gradually the bulk of phosphate usage switches to being used up by the beneficial organisms and microorganisms. You wouldn't want to keep that from happening. But whether less will do I sure don't know, but it's an intriguing question. I guess if phosphate is measurable that's way more than enough, but you wouldn't want to get into a situation of depleting the phosphate.

 

[Sk8r]

As I understand it, most of the phosphate is bound in the rock and sand, and gradually leaches out, producing a phosphate spike which goes on for some time as opportunistic algae takes hold and sucks it up, where it then starts a cycle of bound-in-algae, free, bound-in-more algae until removed by GFO or algae-tossed-from-fuge.

I think #1 is to firm up where the phosphate is actually coming from! Phyto feeding, green flake feeding, definitely, but mostly from rock is what I heard.

 

[snorvich]

I think #1 is to firm up where the phosphate is actually coming from! Phyto feeding, green flake feeding, definitely, but mostly from rock is what I heard.

Then you get into the issue of which rock type has a lot of phosphate. So called "base rock" is often very high in phosphate which leeches out over time.

 

[Angel*Fish]

As I understand it, most of the phosphate is bound in the rock and sand, and gradually leaches out, producing a phosphate spike which goes on for some time as opportunistic algae takes hold and sucks it up, where it then starts a cycle of bound-in-algae, free, bound-in-more algae until removed by GFO or algae-tossed-from-fuge.

I think #1 is to firm up where the phosphate is actually coming from! Phyto feeding, green flake feeding, definitely, but mostly from rock is what I heard.

I see, thanks Sk8r, I clearly didn't understand that was going on in that phase of the "cycle".

Then I think your idea could be positively brilliant and I don't see that it matters what kind of rock is being used if the phosphate is being monitored and controlled. Do you happen to know what phosphate levels often get up to at that time? My speculation is you wouldn't want a reading of zero during that period (someone will correct me if that's wrong), but it could be kept to the bare minimum.

Could lower PO4 levels cause something else to go off balance?

 

[Sk8r]

I'm curious, for sure.
There are a lot of things we've done on the 'grandma's roast pan' model of starting a tank---you know the story about the woman who always cut 1/3 of the roast off and stacked it in the pan, and her daughter did it religiously, assuming it was for moisture, or flavor, until the great-granddaughter questioned it and asked up the chain to great-gran, who said: I always bought a 5 lb roast and I have a 3 lb pan. That's why."

We've done a lot of things from before we had certain materials available. So I'm just kind of methodically playing great-granddaughter until I can get answers. Now we need somebody ready to start up a tank who wants to experiment---

I'd say the very most phosphated rock is dry rock previously used by somebody who fed phyto and had a tank crash.

 

[Kay Tickle]

I'm curious, for sure.
There are a lot of things we've done on the 'grandma's roast pan' model of starting a tank---you know the story about the woman who always cut 1/3 of the roast off and stacked it in the pan, and her daughter did it religiously, assuming it was for moisture, or flavor, until the great-granddaughter questioned it and asked up the chain to great-gran, who said: I always bought a 5 lb roast and I have a 3 lb pan. That's why."

I can't experiment, but that's really funny!

 

[ATinPGH]

I'll volunteer. I'm starting my first tank this week and have dry rock coming in from BRS. I wanted to start small so I picked a 40 gallon breeder and plan on focusing on water quality as opposed to stocking for the first couple of months.

No sump as I want to prove to myself I can run a smaller tank so I'm using an Emperor 400 HOB. Filters will be a phosphate removing filter followed by the standard carbon filter. Later on I will upgrade to a larger tank and use the 40 as the sump.

RO/DI water will be used exclusively.

Aaron

 

[chase01]

I'll play too. I've been thinking about this very question a lot, as I am upgrading from a 34 gal. solana to a 75 gal tank. I've ordered the BRS dual reactors, carbon and GFO. Carbon to clear up any nasties that may leach out of my new foam wall (used Morton's water softener salt to texture it and RODI to dissolve the salt) and GFO to suck up any phosphate from the BRS rock I've been curing for a few weeks in RODI. Once all tests well and looks well in the new tank I plan to add the contents of the solana. I'll let you know what happens. I have an extra bag of "live" sand that I'll throw in the mix as well.

 

[SeanT]

Just "cook" the rock and be done with it.