Phosphate not good.... It's WAR !!!
by
, 03-12-2011 at 11:17 PM (2264 Views)
The good news, got a new toy The Hanna Phosphate checker... The bad news, phosphates are .23 No wonder things don't seem to grow fast in my reef tank ... I admit that I don't vacume the sand bed with every water change. Tank is 4+ years old. So, I want to ATTACK this problem with vigor or vulgar or vodka When I gently rack my sand bed, it's big clouds, I'm in detritus hell ... I went out looking for lanthanum chloride type stuff and didn't buy anything yet. I did however, pickup 500ml of bio pellets to try in the near future. I bought the BRS dual reactor thingy a year ago and run carbon and not yet GFO.
Current Water chemistry:
RO/DI (ATO and water changes)
PH 7.9 to 8.1 (run calcium reactor)
Alk dkh 8.0
Ca 420
Mg (?) Testing soon
nitrates 15ppm
Questions;
Should I use one of the liquid phosphate reducers and then start pellets?
Will pellets alone start bringing phosphate down and how long will it take, 30 days? 60 days?
How aggressive should one get in attacking this sand bed?