Phosphate and GFO question

[DrBoxedWine]

Hi Randy,

You seem to be one of the most knowledgeable people out there regarding phospate in aquaria, so i'm hopeful you can provide me with a little insight here. Or perhaps someone else has some thoughts as well?

I ran hypo on my DT after an ich out break and put all my corals in a QT tank. The 72 day fallow period is up tomorrow. I took my GFO offline when i started hypo in the DT, and algae has been getting bad lately. I did a phosphate test and sure enough, 0.25. I put my reactor back online and added 1.5 times the recommended dose of GFO (per the BRS calculator). I got the turkey baster out and really went to town on the rocks. Tons of poop went flying and the tank is now much cleaner. I changed out the filter pad to pull all that poo out of the system.

I just did a phosphate check (Salifert test kit) and it looks like it is already down to 0.1. I also did a check of the effluent coming out of the reactor, and it looked to be reading 0.03.

What i'm wondering, is do these readings make sense? Should it have dropped that quickly (there are no corals in the tank so i'm trying to drop it fast), and should the GFO already be depleted? Do I need to change out the GFO? That seems really fast, less than 24 hours, to already be depleted but there were a good amount of phosphates in the tank so is that possible?

Thanks in advance and happy Sunday!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks.

Those numbers seem possible. I wouldn't change the GFO until the effluent isn't appreciably lower than the tank, although you'll export phosphate a bit faster if you change now.

 

[DrBoxedWine]

Thanks Randy! I read your writeup on Phosphates last night. It was helpful as well!

 

[DrBoxedWine]

Thanks.

Those numbers seem possible. I wouldn't change the GFO until the effluent isn't appreciably lower than the tank, although you'll export phosphate a bit faster if you change now.

Maybe you could help me with something else I'm having trouble finding the answers too... Do you have much experience regenerating your GFO? Doing this once a month for a cup of gfo sounds tedious to me, but of I could save it all and do it once a year that would be better. Do you know if there any reason I couldn't store it away and then do say a years worth at once?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I've never done it because it sounds tedious to me too, but many people do. Saving it up and doing a big batch should be fine.

 

[DrBoxedWine]

Thanks so much Randy!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.