Phosphate and sulphur reactor

[mark freshwater]

Hi,
I am just getting back into reef after 10 years,
I used to have a aqua medic sulphur reactor which seemed to work a treat,and was going to get another one.
in regards to a Phos reactor apparently they remove Phos and nitrate.
Do they (Phos reactor) remove enough nitrate by themselves or should i run both a sulphur reactor and a phos reactor .
Also ive heard if you pull out every trace of nitrate sps corals suffer as they prefer a little bit of nitrate to feed etc.
thanks mark

 

[Sherman]

Phos reactor will bind PO4

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

most phos reactor run gfo or such media which are generally phos remover and not nitrates. you will need to run a sulfur reactor aside phos reactor to keep both down respectively. sulfur denitrator will not reduce phos.
Nitrates dont need to be absolute 0. a sulfur denitrator will bring it to 0 so either you will have to run the flow fast after cycle or dose nitrates to keep them between 2-10ppm. phos reactor will also bring phos down to 0 and generally would like to see phos 0.01-003 range,

 

[mark freshwater]

Ok great thanks,
So would i just run both refractors a bit fast and keep checking until they are low but not gone?

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

phos reactor will need to be fast flow where gfo tumbles on top at all times. sulfur will start real slow like few drops per minute till it cycles then you can slowly increase flow every few days till its fast enough. never open it full throttle. it will lose cycle.

 

[mark freshwater]

oh yes thats right drop or so a second sulphur and tumble gfo ( been a long day),
Its hard to decide which way to go ,
Can i add less gfo media and see if it leaves the good amount of phos in the tank?
Im starting to think to not go with either until i see a problem that general maintenance cant fix.
Id rather be safe than sorry and have both running but at the same time don't want to have adverse affects buy doing so.
Any input would be a great help.
thanks

 

[Littlemikey]

Yes you can run less gfo, most people do so at to not whipe phos. I run a quarter gfo than recommended and this keep my phos we’re i want it with my respective regime

 

[mark freshwater]

ok so i can turn the sulphur up after it cycles, and use less gfo thats sounds good,

Also the reason in the first part of this post i asked about Phos removal media removing nitrate as well was beacuse of this product http://www.guppysaquariumproducts.c...rtex-filter-media/npx-bioplasticsr-200ml.html , it claims to do both , not sure if its true though.
Would be great if it did because then it would just be one reactor and one media.