Such thing as too much phosphate removal?

[Altohombre]

On my 100 day old 46g bow I Currently have my PhosBan Reactor going with the amount recommended for 50gals. I have a small media bag with carbon and a little phosphate in my preskimmer box return. I am tempted to add this other phosphate removal stuff into my eheim 2213 canister filter. What do you all think? Right now I am mostly fighting diatoms on my sandbed and glass. There is also some green bubble algae on my hairy mushroom rock and have just noticed some brown strang like algae growing on my rocks. The PhosBan Reactor hasn't seemed to have made a difference since I purchased it at the TFP Anniversary Sale.

Matt

 

[Phyl]

Sounds to me like your silicates are high. I think that's what causes dinoflagelettes (sp?!) and excessive diatoms. What kind of water are you using? Salt? Lighting? Sudden increase in lighting?

 

[MikeNapoli]

You're gonna have a diatom out break at that age. It's fine.

And I think it's silicate not phos that you should worry about...

As far as too much phos removal. I don't think so. Too much wasting of money maybe but if you got the money to add equipment then do what you can. Phos should be at zero which is near impossible... i think.

edit: phyl beat me.

 

[magic]

So what removes the silicates?

 

[Hawkeye]

So what removes the silicates?

i could be totally off on this - but I believe certain types of sand for the playground could have silicates. In addition water that is not treated via RODI may contain silicates. Therefore the conclusion would be in order to reduce silicates - one tries not to introduce them.

That stated, and I am not championing this product - just answering the question - one method would be to use a product like Rowa Phos. standard disclaimers apply (e.g. no one in my family works for rowa phos, owns stock, yada yada yada).


matt - 100 days - i'd imagine in a few more the stuff may just totally die back and disappear (hopefully). Are you skimming heavily? perhaps increasing the frequency of water changes initially may help.

 

[Phyl]

Additionally, some salt brands contain more silicates than others (just as some contain more PO4 or NO3 than others).

 

[blange3]

Tell us more about your filtration and parameters.

Have you added any additional rock since the initial start-up?

What kind of livestock do you have and what and how much are you feeding.

Don't loose too much sleep over the diatoms, everyone gets an outbreak in the early stages.

 

[Altohombre]

I started my tank with Oceanic Sea Salt for a month, switched to IO and used for about a month, and picked up Seachem Reef Salt at the TFP Anni Sale so did one water change with that. The diatoms have been occuring since the IO was used for about a month now. It started off real bad and my rocks and sand and glass turned dark burgandy/brown. Upon Carlo's advice when he was at Allquatics I got the Sera Silicate Clear and a Phosphate remover (forget which one) and used them since. The dark stuff went away within a day, but I have had a constant lighter colored version that dusts my entire glass and about 1/2 my sand bed. I added the PhosBan reactor about three weeks ago and there was no change. I have two Koralia 3's pointed upwards in the tank because it was blowing my sand all over the place. I am also running an Eheim 2213 with just the blue sponge, brown coco puff looking things, Silicate clear, white sponge, and the carbon pad. I change my water 10% every week as well as the filter every week. I clean off the glass everyday with my mag-float.

Livestock includes: Flame Angel, Midas Blenny, B/W True Perc, Regular True Perc, 6 nassarius, 6 blue legged hermits, 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp. 5 Astrea snails. 1 turbo, couple remaining margarita snails that were sold to me as turbos, 1 2" ultra crocea clam.

The only thing I notice that takes care of my glass is the Astrea snails., but 6 of them don't seem to do enough for the whole tank.

 

[magic]

'I am also running an Eheim 2213 with just the blue sponge, brown coco puff looking things, Silicate clear, white sponge, and the carbon pad.'

Do you clean the sponges weekly? If not this can be contributing to your outbreaks.

Bob

 

[Hawkeye]

The coco-puffs (great description by the way) - they are there for the bacteria to colonize and grow. However - I'm not sure you need them if you have enough LR. Only concern I have is that if it gets dirty in there, it will add to the nutrients left to decay which will result in algae issues later.

I think I put 20 or 30 astreas when I started my 55 years ago. They are pretty good about cleaning glass, though the mag-float does get used.

As a side note, these are listed as "turbos" when they do the invert group-buy in this club.

 

[techrider62]

no