GFO and GAC or LITHA!?

[ReelRednekReefer]

Ok. My tank is about 2 months old. 90g with sump with 40B for sump. All rock was dry and cycle was done with shrimp and Bio-spira. Reef Crystals and RODI water have been used from day 1. Had a PH issue that improved with a fresh air line to skimmer. Now algae has ensued, GHA before much, if any diatoms. Rock was bright white then I added a couple frags just after memorial day and within a week I saw what I believe is GHA growing on the frag plugs. I tried removing them and scrubbing it off with a tooth brush but it but it comes back within a day or two and it has now moved to cover rocks, glass and sand.

Current stock is :
1 medium clown fish
2 peppermint shrimp
3 small nassarius snails
5 small blue leg hermits
1 brittle starfish
1 green duncan 2 head frag ( 3 new heads growing rapidly IMO)
1 -2 headed Frogspawn ( very full and colorful)
1 - monti cap frag ( can see tiny green polyps open and moving....so Im guessing good?)
1- Acan frag ( receded 75% in 2 weeks but has since stabilized so it may recover???)

Was feeding a 1/2" cube of diy blender mush every 2-3 days. Fed one batch (25% of recommended size) of BBS. Noticed GHA intensified about 5 days afterward. I am now feeding pellets one at a time until clown is done feeding. I have cut back lighting to 8hrs a day from 12hrs. I did a 25% WC yesterday which I scrubbed all glass, rocks and stirred sand attempting to dislodge as much algae as possible to be removed during WC and via sock (which I removed today). This stuff is on the rocks hardcore, even using a stiff brush I only got 75% of it. Obsiously PO4 is there, so how to remove it?

So the question is.... Should I add a GFO and Carbon reactor or use some other PO4 reducing media? Or do I simply remove what I can at WC's and wait it out? I want a clean tank but do not want to fight the inevitable. Thanks in advance.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

Here's a pic of what I'm dealing with....

 

[Reefing Madness]

In the long run, either a GFO, Lanthanum, Fuge/Macro Algae or ATS is recommended.
I use SeaKlear in my tank for remove phosphates

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

I used lanthanum chloride after an acid bath on my rocks, in hopes of preventing this. How do you dose the LC?

Any opinions out there as to Fuge VS GFO?

 

[Reefing Madness]

GFO requires a Reactor
Sump requires and overflow and lighting
Up to you which one you run

I dose only when needed. Its only like a capful on my 240g tank when I do dose. I wait til the testing tells me its needed, then I dose.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

The LC does sound simpler! Thanks! I did not know it could be dosed directly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The LC does sound simpler! Thanks! I did not know it could be dosed directly.

I prefer GFO.

Here's my blurb on lanthanum (the article also discusses many other methods):

https://www.reef2reef.com/blog/phosphate-in-the-reef-aquarium-by-randy-holmes-farley/

from it:

Soluble Metals to Bind Phosphate

There are several approaches that add soluble metals to bind and precipitate phosphate. The most popular involves adding lanthanum, which precipitates as lanthanum phosphate and/or lanthanum carbonate (which itself may contain some lanthanum phosphate). The lanthanum approach is widely used in the pool industry to reduce phosphate, and seems to often work well in aquaria. It is also very inexpensive, using products such as Seaklear (make sure it is a pure lanthanum version as mixtures with other metals also exist). Note that this method reduces alkalinity, as removing carbonate and phosphate as a lanthanum precipitate will reduce alkalinity.

One way to use it is to drip is slowly just upstream of a particulate filter to catch and remove a substantial amount of the precipitate that is formed. One drawback to the lanthanum approach is that much of the precipitated material may escape capture and simply settle out in the system somewhere. That may not be an issue, but many aquarists do not prefer to accumulate such material. A second concern is that some people have observed problematic reactions from aquarium inhabitants. While there are not a lot of such stories, it is enough for many aquarists to look for other options.

However, due to its low cost, this approach is especially well suited to outside of the tank operations, such as the removal of excess phosphate from phosphate-contaminated calcium carbonate rock that is later to be added to a reef aquarium.

Soluble iron has also been used in this way, but not nearly so often as lanthanum.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

I ended up getting the Spectrapure dual reactor. All I have is an API phosphate kit so I'm not even gonna bother testing. Already over budget this month on the tank, so I'll have to wait on the Hanna Checker for a week or so but then I'll check it. How long does the gfo take to start reducing algea. I'd assume manual removal is still necessary and the gfo will prevent/slow new growth. Right?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Manual removal will help a lot.
How well reducing phosphate works depends on how much was there to begin with. It won't reduce algae until you bring the tank level below the point where it is limiting the growth of the algae.

So, for example, taking phosphate from 2 ppm to 0.05 ppm may have no apparent effect. Taking it from 0.03 ppm to 0.01 ppm may eventually eliminate it.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

On the Hanna checker. They have one measuring in PPB or one for PPM. Price is within a few bucks. Any reason not to get the ULR (PPB) model?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Different folks have different preferences about the reproducibility of the ULR model. I've not really seen a consensus, however.

If you use the ULR, which claims to be somewhat more accurate, be sure to multiply the reading by 3.1 to get phosphate in ppb rather than phosphorus.

 

[ReelRednekReefer]

Ok. Thanks

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You're welcome

Happy Reefing.