Taking Rowaphos offline

[Ravsta]

Over the past few weeks my Phosphate and Nitrate have been reducing to the point where now my phosphates have been reading 0 and Nitrates <5. Consequently I've had a bit of Dino growth in the tank in the sand and on a few rocks.

Does anyone see any issues with taking my Rowaphos offline until I get my Phosphate back up to 0.3? I could dose Phosphates but I think I would prefer to increase my fish bio-load over the coming weeks instead as I only currently have 3 fish in a 75 gallon. Also feels slightly counterproductive to have a phosphate remover whilst I try to increase my phosphates.

Thanks In Advance.

 

[Deep]

that should be no problem to remove Rowaphos. You can add it back later if you need it,

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree that is a fine plan.

 

[Ravsta]

Thanks guys. It’s now offline. Let’s see how things go over the next couple of days. I’ve also removed filter pad from the sump to give the nitrates and phosphates some extra help.

 

[blasterman]

I'm not a big fan of feeding to correct phosphate. The problem is that over feeding often increases nitrate a lot more than phosphate and you end up with just another problem to solve. Some foods like reef roids are phosphate heavy, but it's still not a good solution.

My instincts would be to cut reactor time in half vs going fully offline just in case you get a spike, but my understanding is Rowaphos is a fairly 'light switch' responsive process that goes 0-100mph quickly, unlike bio pellets or carbon dosing that have a lengthy biologic lag. Just monitor phosphate closely, but that's obvious.

Focusing on phosphate levels recently has been the single biggest improvement I've made to coral health in the past 10 years. Good call to focus on it.