Easy, cheap, and effective phosphate remover

[Murica]

Just would like to share my experience to hopefully help others with their hair algae battle.

I've been battling gha for quite some time now. I never ran rodi until a few months ago, the second I hooked up my rodi, gha exploded in my tank. Probably just coincidental.. (I never ran it because I have no contaminants in my water, just high tds. I never knew tds were an issue, but I definitely do now hence the gha)

I got some chaeto for my new basement fuge and, for a 300 gallon total water volume system, the phosphates didn't go down quick enough. Then, I ran gfo with similar results, I think the system is too large for the gfo reactor I have. So I started thinking, gha thrives off phosphates, so why not grow that?

I took a roll of screen door fiberglass mesh and laid it in the fuge so it completely covered the bottom and all my rocks. Not too long after, gha started growing like crazy on the mesh, and my display has less and less every day. It's actually killing the gha in my display so quickly that I have little air bubbles covering my rocks now from the dying gha since now they are being starved out.

I also leave my fuge light on 24/7.

Quick easy and cheap. I highly recommend this strategy as it worked exceptionally well for me.

 

[sghera64]

Sounds you just made your own algae scrubber - but a huge one.

Do you have sand in the 300 gal DT?

How old is the system?

 

[Murica]

Sounds you just made your own algae scrubber - but a huge one.

Do you have sand in the 300 gal DT?

How old is the system?

Nope, no sand. I think a ton of phosphates sunk into the rock over the years, and now it's finally leaching back out.

It's a 240 display and a 150 gallon sump/refugium, so I'm estimating 300 total water volume. It's three years old.

 

[sghera64]

Nope, no sand. I think a ton of phosphates sunk into the rock over the years, and now it's finally leaching back out.

It's a 240 display and a 150 gallon sump/refugium, so I'm estimating 300 total water volume. It's three years old.

Rock (and I was thinking maybe sand) absorbing it’s limit of phosphate was kind of where my mind was going too. Your “algae scrubber” will likely remove it over time as you harvest. How are your NO3 levels?

 

[JumboShrimp]

I like Phosguard in a BRS reactor.

 

[Murica]

I like Phosguard in a BRS reactor.

I'll try that out if I continue to have problems. Thanks!

 

[Murica]

Rock (and I was thinking maybe sand) absorbing it’s limit of phosphate was kind of where my mind was going too. Your “algae scrubber” will likely remove it over time as you harvest. How are your NO3 levels?

I have a ton of live rock so it's, and always has been nearly untraceable. Granted, I'm using lower end kits to test it, since I've always had little concern for nitrates. I've never shown a reading above 1ppm, and that's when I just started out. Now it's consistently reading 0. Lots of rock, lots of water volume, only a few fish, and good feeding habits. I really think the sole reason is the tds in my tap that's accumulated over the years and sunk into the rock.

 

[sghera64]

I have a ton of live rock so it's, and always has been nearly untraceable. Granted, I'm using lower end kits to test it, since I've always had little concern for nitrates. I've never shown a reading above 1ppm, and that's when I just started out. Now it's consistently reading 0. Lots of rock, lots of water volume, only a few fish, and good feeding habits. I really think the sole reason is the tds in my tap that's accumulated over the years.

Keep an eye on your NO3 levels. If your theory is correct, then the system has a lot of PO4 accumulation with out a commensurate amount of NO3. What could happen is that you don’t have enough carbon or NO3 to fuel the helpful algae. That algae may fail, then PO4 begins to show up in the water and then cyano bacteria settle in. Cyano can a fix nitrogen from atmospheric N. So, it will feast on the PO4 and get its N from the air.

 

[Murica]

Keep an eye on your NO3 levels. If your theory is correct, then the system has a lot of PO4 accumulation with out a commensurate amount of NO3. What could happen is that you don’t have enough carbon or NO3 to fuel the helpful algae. That algae may fail, then PO4 begins to show up in the water and then cyano bacteria settle in. Cyano can a fix nitrogen from atmospheric N. So, it will feast on the PO4 and get its N from the air.

Should I feed more or get more fish to balance no3 out? Just until the phosphates go back down?

 

[sghera64]

Should I feed more or get more fish to balance no3 out?

I would recommend you measure NO3. If it drops below 1PPM, then we can think about action. Do you have a decent NO3 test kit?

I know the Red Sea Pro can read down to 0.25 PPM NO3. If I recall, my NYOS kit got down to 1PPM and I could kinda eye-ball it down to about 0.5 ppm.

 

[Murica]

I would recommend you measure NO3. If it drops below 1PPM, then we can think about action. Do you have a decent NO3 test kit?

I know the Red Sea Pro can read down to 0.25 PPM NO3. If I recall, my NYOS kit got down to 1PPM and I could kinda eye-ball it down to about 0.5 ppm.

No it's not a good kit, but it consistently reads 0 nitrate which, I know it's more difficult to read lower numbers. I am pretty "clean" and I may have too much bio filtration in the tank. I'm going to have to buy a better test kit but, maybe if I raise nitrates to 3-5 it'll help balance things out

By the way, you're being very helpful. As long as I've been in this hobby I still miss things that others see as simple. I never even considered my nitrate levels as a possible problem since they've always been low. Hopefully doing this will help get those phosphates out [emoji106]

 

[sghera64]

No it's not a good kit, but it consistently reads 0 nitrate which, I know it's more difficult to read lower numbers. I am pretty "clean" and I may have too much bio filtration in the tank. I'm going to have to buy a better test kit but, maybe if I raise nitrates to 3-5 it'll help balance things out

By the way, you're being very helpful. As long as I've been in this hobby I still miss things that others see as simple. I never even considered my nitrate levels as a possible problem since they've always been low. Hopefully doing this will help get those phosphates out [emoji106]

You are welcome. That’s the beauty of this R2R forum. There are a lot of good people here willing to share what they’ve learned.

Maybe someone else can chime in on a good NO3 kit. I switched from NYOS to Red Sea Pro because I had NO3 levels near zero. They were clearly well below 0.25 ppM on the Red Sea Pro. I ended up adding chemical nitrate (calcium nitrate to be exact) to get my nitrate level in the range of 4-8ppm.

You can also read the reviews on sites like Bulk Reef Supply to see what reefers think about the different NO3 kits.

I would, again, recommend measuring the nitrate with a trusted kit before trying to boost it through feeding or with chemicals or other products.