BRS High Capacity or Regular GFO?

[DmitryB]

Gonna bring this thread back after 10 years because I'm now debating the same question. Nothing has changed as far as GFO? Or has it? High Capacity or Granular? Or do you use it at all??

 

[Bear22]

Why can't people just practice reading discipline and just answer the dang question(s) without going into some diatribe/polemic? Geeze...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Gonna bring this thread back after 10 years because I'm now debating the same question. Nothing has changed as far as GFO? Or has it? High Capacity or Granular? Or do you use it at all??

GFO is fine to use, but recognize it binds many trace elements. The high capacity is fine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Why can't people just practice reading discipline and just answer the dang question(s) without going into some diatribe/polemic? Geeze...

Did you mean that for this ten year old thread, where every post seems on point?

 

[Reefering1]

I prefer regular, if any at all, always felt like in stripping the water and corals react negatively. Maybe just use too much?

Why can't people just practice reading discipline and just answer the dang question(s) without going into some diatribe/polemic? Geeze...

Says the one person that didn't answer the question and had nothing useful to offer the conversation.

 

[X-37B]

I have tried them all and prefer P-minus for po4 control.
I like that you dont need to rinse it before use.

 

[exnisstech]

Gonna bring this thread back after 10 years because I'm now debating the same question. Nothing has changed as far as GFO? Or has it? High Capacity or Granular? Or do you use it at all??

When I run GFO i like rowaphos because it's much easier to rinse than regular ot HC GFO.

 

[DmitryB]

When I run GFO i like rowaphos because it's much easier to rinse than regular ot HC GFO.

Is Rowaphos gentler than a regular GFO? The feeling I'm getting from this thread (and other places) is GFO should be used occasionally and in small amounts because it strips too much needed trace elements. (I only just turned on my IM 40 and the custom caddy comes with two baggies of carbon and two baggies of GFO. I put both baggies of each in... perhaps that's too much even though at the moment there's no livestock in it (but corals and a couple of fish will be arriving in a few of weeks.)

 

[exnisstech]

Is Rowaphos gentler than a regular GFO? The feeling I'm getting from this thread (and other places) is GFO should be used occasionally and in small amounts because it strips too much needed trace elements. (I only just turned on my IM 40 and the custom caddy comes with two baggies of carbon and two baggies of GFO. I put both baggies of each in... perhaps that's too much even though at the moment there's no livestock in it (but corals and a couple of fish will be arriving in a few of weeks.)

TBH I'm not sure if rowa is more or less effective than regular GFO. I only run it on one tank when my Hanna ULR PO4 tester flashes 0.9 . I'll bring it down to 0.4 and let it creep back up. I only run about 1/3 of what the directions calls for so it doesn't strip PO4 too quickly. My tank doesn't seem to mind higher PO4 so I only run it's when my tester is maxed. I just like to have a number for piece of mind so I only used it when PO4 exceeds 0.9

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Is Rowaphos gentler than a regular GFO? The feeling I'm getting from this thread (and other places) is GFO should be used occasionally and in small amounts because it strips too much needed trace elements. (I only just turned on my IM 40 and the custom caddy comes with two baggies of carbon and two baggies of GFO. I put both baggies of each in... perhaps that's too much even though at the moment there's no livestock in it (but corals and a couple of fish will be arriving in a few of weeks.)

What does gentler mean?

I don’t see any reason to think that any brand of GFO is different from another in terms of any effects that arise from binding ions, except that some brands has more surface area than others.