I'm really careful about putting additives in my tank. Ocean's Blend 2 Part and Carbon is about all it ever gets. I do not have the space or funds for an RO/DI unit, nor to I have the space to store water from a LFS. Currently, I do use a very good water purifier for my tank, but I know it's not the same as RO/DI. I have some green algae in the tank, with much, much less diatom algae. Would a product like Phos-Ban or any other phosphate remover be advantagous for me? Thanks, Dakota(9)
No RO/DI, should I be using a phosphate spong
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GFO is not a good thing to use a frontline phosphate absorber... Since it is suprisingly limited in PO4 absorption ability. It'll get saturated in no time, and its way too expensive to use for that purpose. As such, it's much better suited at polishing off your tank's phosphates rather than filtering out phosphates from tap. Get a Ro/Di or buy your water from Kroger or a local fish store. Don't use distilled they can sometimes use copper in the lines. Oddly, my local Kroger had better TDS readings than all 4 of the LFS local to me.
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I say any way you can decrease your PO4, it is a good idea till you can get an RO unit But Jin is right GFO is not the BEST method...
Just a word to the wise though, PO4 is not the only bad thing in your water. I just got my water inspection report from the city of Lawrenceville. I was shocked that it showed a HIGH level of copper in the city's water system. Something like .15 ppm of CU in the water. Heck that is almost treatment levels. There were all sorts of other nasty stuff in the water too. I will have to dig up the report when I can find where Jenn hid it from me.
Long story short, get RO water when you can!
Just a word to the wise though, PO4 is not the only bad thing in your water. I just got my water inspection report from the city of Lawrenceville. I was shocked that it showed a HIGH level of copper in the city's water system. Something like .15 ppm of CU in the water. Heck that is almost treatment levels. There were all sorts of other nasty stuff in the water too. I will have to dig up the report when I can find where Jenn hid it from me.
Long story short, get RO water when you can!
Seems everyone does use RO water, but other than 1 hair alrae outbreak a year ago due to poor maintaince and local water supply (before I got the water purifier) My tank has been ok, I've seen some tanks that had ZERO green algae, they were reaaly nice tanks. Oddly, all the frags I bought last night had green algae on them, one had a good bit of hair algae, I scrubbed it off before I put it in my tank though. Thanks for the advice, I'm going to research the best phosphate spong out there. thanks again, Dakota(9)
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Well you're fortunate to be living in ATL. We have some of the cleanest municipal water in the country. My tap water has had TDS as low as 50. When I used to live in chicago, go cubs, TDS readings of over 300 were commonplace. So, you could probably have a very nice reef tank with just tap water here. Keep in mind that the readings during spring do exceed 200 due to runoff, but are otherwise pretty good.
On a side note be careful about some of those frags... Removing all the foreign algae is extremely prudent. One of the many frags I recieved last night was loaded with bryopsis.
On a side note be careful about some of those frags... Removing all the foreign algae is extremely prudent. One of the many frags I recieved last night was loaded with bryopsis.
RO/DI, Skimmiing, carbon, macro-algae and even kalkwasser are great phosphate reducers, but GFO is proven to be a good medium for removing Phosphates as well. It rips phosphate out of a tank very quickly usually only tanking a few hours to drop levels off reagent testing charts. In most tests I have read, it reduced phosphates about 1ppm in a 100g per 100grams of GFO or about 1g of GFO for each gallon of saltwater for 1ppm. GFO also removes heavy metals, silica and such as well. There are some downsides to GFO, but removing phophates isn't one of them from what I have read.
As for cost, GFO in recent months has become affordable to run. PhosPure is less than a nickle a gram and you can buy bulk GFO for less than that.
All that said, I am a big believer in macroalgaes and RO/DI water. Better to not get it in there to begin with or use renewable sources of removal.
As for cost, GFO in recent months has become affordable to run. PhosPure is less than a nickle a gram and you can buy bulk GFO for less than that.
All that said, I am a big believer in macroalgaes and RO/DI water. Better to not get it in there to begin with or use renewable sources of removal.
