Required Triton dose doubled with GFO??

[CMO]

I started running phosban GFO and my required Triton dosing went from about 11 ml / day to 22 ml / day to maintain 8 dkh. Is this normal? I've run Triton Al 99 with no required increased dosing but switched over to GFO for a month per recommendation to keep aluminum levels from building.

Anyone else seen such a large increasing in dosing required while running GFO?

Also, with the dose effectively now doubled I wonder if that will cause over dosing of any elements. My Triton ICP tests have been tracking well with dosing at 8 dkh prior to GFO increase.

 

[Mortie31]

Mine goess up as well but only a few ml a day, to be fair it did the same when I was using bicarbonate as well

 

[Gareth elliott]

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/2/chemistry
Might help explain what you are seeing.

 

[CMO]

Thanks for sharing the article- that helps. However, I'm still shocked by the amount my required dosing went up with the GFO. And, I'm still only at 7.6 dkh and haven't made it back to 8 even at doubling the dose.

Are there any other known ways to remove aluminum by chance? I'd much rather run AL 99 which IMO is superior as it doesn't clog and didn't affect alk.

 

[Mortie31]

Thanks for sharing the article- that helps. However, I'm still shocked by the amount my required dosing went up with the GFO. And, I'm still only at 7.6 dkh and haven't made it back to 8 even at doubling the dose.

Are there any other known ways to remove aluminum by chance? I'd much rather run AL 99 which IMO is superior as it doesn't clog and didn't affect alk.

You might be better off increasing the Alk back to the level you want by using Bicarbonate or another form of Alk, if you use the core7 to increase you may well put your other levels out of whack. Alternate Al99 with GFO is the way triton recommend, I personally use LaCL.

 

[CMO]

You might be better off increasing the Alk back to the level you want by using Bicarbonate or another form of Alk, if you use the core7 to increase you may well put your other levels out of whack. Alternate Al99 with GFO is the way triton recommend, I personally use LaCL.

My Al is back to zero so I'l switch back to Al 99 and use another source of alk like you mentioned when running GFO in the future.

What is LaCL? Thanks

 

[JNHAqua]

I've had issues, in the past, with alkalinity and GFO. I was using BRS' high capacity GFO. At the time, my alk was lower than I wanted it to be so I raised the alk dosage. This was before I started using the triton method so I was using the standard 2 part additives. Alk wasn't budging so I upped the dose even more and then it actually started to go down. At the same time I was having issues getting adequate flow through the GFO. Every time I would change it out it was all clumped together. Eventually I got pretty good tumble through the GFO but then realized that's when my alk issues got worse. After some searching I came to the conclusion that the GFO was affecting my alk. Apparently GFO can encourage precipitation. In my case I had a good amount of precipitate in the reactor with the GFO and also down stream from the reactor outlet. I stopped using GFO and my alk issues went away.

 

[CMO]

I've had issues, in the past, with alkalinity and GFO. I was using BRS' high capacity GFO. At the time, my alk was lower than I wanted it to be so I raised the alk dosage. This was before I started using the triton method so I was using the standard 2 part additives. Alk wasn't budging so I upped the dose even more and then it actually started to go down. At the same time I was having issues getting adequate flow through the GFO. Every time I would change it out it was all clumped together. Eventually I got pretty good tumble through the GFO but then realized that's when my alk issues got worse. After some searching I came to the conclusion that the GFO was affecting my alk. Apparently GFO can encourage precipitation. In my case I had a good amount of precipitate in the reactor with the GFO and also down stream from the reactor outlet. I stopped using GFO and my alk issues went away.

Agreed. I just took my GFO offline and mixed a much smaller amount of al99 in with my carbon instead. The high dose of GFO/core7 and alk swings really ticked off my corals for a few days. I'm back down to 10/ml per day of core 7 and everything is happy again.