GFO and Carbon

[wavemaker81]

Hi, my 75g reef tank, has been up about 8 weeks now, and I wanted to know if its required for me to run GFO and Carbon? I currently am only using a protein skimmer, but was wondering if I needed chemical filtration as well.

Brian

 

[darcurr]

definately not required, but it definately helps. At 8 weeks, I would want to make sure the tank is fully cycled before I started running carbon/gfo. Do you know what your parameters are?

 

[wavemaker81]

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 2PPM
Phosphates - <1 PPM
Alkalinity - 13 dkH

Edit: I have a pair of tomato clowns in the tank now and a very small CUC.

 

[darcurr]

If your phosphates stay that low, I would skip the exspense of GFO, but I would start running the carbon. If the phosphates start creeping up you can always add GFO.

 

[smallblock]

you also have to consider things that feed of phosphates fooling the test.