Carbon/GFO

[JDubb_4051]

New tank and my nitrates are already at zero. Don’t know phosphates yet(Hanna checker ordered). Thinking about adding carbon/GFO as a preventative. I’m trying to get ahead on anything that may arise so I’ve been buying(too much my wife would say) equipment that is going to make maintenance easier and hopefully leave more time to enjoy.

Pointless at this stage with low/zero nutrient level or a good preventative and worth adding to a new tank?

75g, 3 fish in...2 in QT. CUC, Sump, fuge, skimmer all probably doing an amazing job.

 

[dwest]

New tank and my nitrates are already at zero. Don’t know phosphates yet(Hanna checker ordered). Thinking about adding carbon/GFO as a preventative. I’m trying to get ahead on anything that may arise so I’ve been buying(too much my wife would say) equipment that is going to make maintenance easier and hopefully leave more time to enjoy.

Pointless at this stage with low/zero nutrient level or a good preventative and worth adding to a new tank?

75g, 3 fish in...2 in QT. CUC, Sump, fuge, skimmer all probably doing an amazing job.

I would definitely not add gfo. Phosphates would be reduced by gfo. This would make your tank very vulnerable to dinos. You don’t want to go there.

 

[JDubb_4051]

I would definitely not add gfo. Phosphates would be reduced by gfo. This would make your tank very vulnerable to dinos. You don’t want to go there.

Ahh...good point. So I could just go with carbon for now and reap the benefits of clarity and other toxins and add GFO down the line?

Because of space considerations I’m likely going to run out of the same reactor anyway.

 

[dwest]

Ahh...good point. So I could just go with carbon for now and reap the benefits of clarity and other toxins and add GFO down the line?

Because of space considerations I’m likely going to run out of the same reactor anyway.

For sure, wait for gfo. GAC is fine. I always run GAC. Be very careful when you use GFO. Start very slow, but none yet.

 

[JDubb_4051]

For sure, wait for gfo. GAC is fine. I always run GAC. Be very careful when you use GFO. Start very slow, but none yet.

Really appreciate the input. Thank you!

 

[SPR1968]

I would certainly add activated carbon as it will help with many things, smells, clear water etc and depending on the setup change it about every 4 weeks.

On phosphate you want to keep it locked down very low and a good target is around 0.03ppm. You won’t need GFO probably yet, but keep and eye on phosphate and don’t let it rise otherwise you risk various issues like algae and other general annoying things. Using rhowaphos was the best single thing I ever did with my system.

Nitrate is another issue, don’t get it to low and make the water sterile (again bad things can arrive like cyno bacteria) as you need some nutrients in the water. A good target is around 5-10ppm, mine is around 15ppm but it depends of course on what your trying to achieve