Alk drop with new GFO

[djbetterly]

Obviously alkalinity drops with fresh GFO, when using triton should I just let the additives re-stabilize the alk? Or should something be done to compensate?

 

[jofost1216]

I just started using GFO in my DT. I had a reading of .16 and after 1 week the reading was down to .06. My alk only dropped .5. But i heard if you are stripping down a higher reading of phosphate it can strip the alk down a lot more. So in my experience the higher the phosphate the more alk you will loose while bringing it down. It also might be different if your putting it in a mesh bag in a filter, or using a phosban reactor. I personally use a phosban reactor and put slow flow through it so it kind of looks like a lava lamp movement in the reactor. Hope this helps.

 

[djbetterly]

Good to know...my PO4 was just starting to creep up to .08 so I changed the GFO. Maybe I won't get a huge drop then. I'll test it out tomorrow after the GFO has run for 24hrs.

 

[joefishUC]

I just started using GFO in my DT. I had a reading of .16 and after 1 week the reading was down to .06. My alk only dropped .5. But i heard if you are stripping down a higher reading of phosphate it can strip the alk down a lot more. So in my experience the higher the phosphate the more alk you will loose while bringing it down. It also might be different if your putting it in a mesh bag in a filter, or using a phosban reactor. I personally use a phosban reactor and put slow flow through it so it kind of looks like a lava lamp movement in the reactor. Hope this helps.

The goal is to not drop the phosphate too much. I recommend using a small amount of gfo and changing it weekly. Run it on a slow flow and with some tweaking you should be able to find the sweet spot where the amount gfo, flow and frequency of change all result in a fairly stable po4 range. As for the boosting of alk, I would supplement with Triton CaCo3 if you notice a quick drop in Alk after an aggressive po4 pull down.