GFO PO4 reduction timeline

[PhantomHalo]

I just posted about blacking out my sump to kill off the GHA down there, but I also bought a properly sized GFO reactor the other day. I just got it installed and was wondering what the best way to attack this problem in my main tank. I scrubbed the rocks yesterday in the DT and did a 10% water change. I tested after the water change and it is sitting at .06 ppm. I don’t want to starve my SPS, but I am worried about having false readings due to the GHA soaking up all the nutrients. Also, when the sump starts to die off I don’t want it to cause a spike.
Should I be running it with the high capacity GFO full time during the black out? Should I run it full time until the GHA is gone? Is there a better plan of attack? I am running UV and my protein skimmer as well. I am also running a dual BRS reactor one side with regular GFO and one side with carbon. However, the flow is horrible and my system is around 370 gallons. So the BRS one just can’t keep up. Literal trickle coming out of the end. Anyway, the tank is a mixed reef, but primarily SPS. So I am just trying not to bottom out my nutrients. Thanks for the help!

 

[Big G]

Bump

 

[cmoore806]

What did you end up doing? I’d think physical removal of as much GHA would help accomplish your goals.

 

[PhantomHalo]

I put the reactor online and it dropped my PO4 down pretty quick. About a week. However, I turned up the flow on my reactor and it pushed the bottom sponge up forcing all the GFO out of the reactor and into my sump. Some even got into my DT. So I had to vacuum it out. Still have the GHA and Dino’s now. Bought a bunch of turbo snails to help with the GHA, but so far my triggers are just scaring them and messing with them. They aren’t really eating anything right now. Since I only really have base rock and a few bottles of bacteria that I started the tank with, I think some of my problem is the lack of live rock and the natural bacteria. I put a small 5# piece of live rock in my sump a while back, but I don’t think that did much. So I just bought 30#’s of Florida live rock that will be overnighted to me this week straight out of the water. Hoping that will help some too. Long story short, the GFO worked, hair algae got frail, but is still growing and coming back.