Reducing stress in your mixed reef

[neuroslicer]

Barrett mentioned in another thread running carbon for a couple weeks after moving coral from one tank to another... good advice. But I'd go further and say that if you've got a mixed reef with lots of soft coral and LPS, especially if they're close to one another... that running carbon for a couple weeks is not enough. I've got a hugh devil's hand and a very large pagoda cup coral, and those guys secret a lot of chemicals into the water as a defense mechanism. There's little doubt that there's the possibility to stunt the growth of other coral, my SPS in particular, with such chemicals in the tank. So I run carbon all the time. I use a phosban reactor, which forces water efficiently through the carbon, rather than putting the carbon in a filter bag and having the water passively flow across the bag. I use about a quarter of a cup of carbon. I also put 2 - 3 tablespoons of phosban in the same reaction chamber to help keep phosphate levels low (along with the chaetomorpha which consumes both phosphate and nitrates). I change it out once a month, and by that time the flow out of the chamber has reduced to about half of what it was when it was fresh.

That carbon will help keep defensive toxins from building up, and your phosphates will stay low as well.

 

[bshumake]

Amen brother

 

[just dave]

Carbon

 

[neuroslicer]

The article that Dave presents convinced me last year that the phosban reactor chamber was the best way to run the carbon/phosban mixture (see the graph comparing active vs. passive carbon filtering). And I've found Black Diamond GAC by Marineland to be superb!

 

[gflat65]

24/7 forever...

 

[luckyfish]

Do the phosban chambers require a separate pump?

 

[neuroslicer]

they have an input port and an output port... so either they need their own pump or just plump a line from your return

 

[willember]

I don't know how mixed my reef is as the only softies I have are zoanthids and xenia, but I, too, run carbon 24/7. I use a filter bag, but it sits at the bottom of a filter sock at the end of the drain pipe into the sump. This setup forces the carbon bag to be pressed up against the end of the pipe, so the water is required to go through the bag. (Almost) as good as active filtering. I have a separate DIY gatorade phosban reactor too and also use chaetomorpha in a refugium. I agree with Jay on the benefits of using all these elements...

 

[luckyfish]

Thanks, guys. I'm moving in the direction of a reactor. I had run carbon intermittently in the past but I believe I'll build it into the system.