Rowaphos quantity needed

mrpontiac80 · Jul 10, 2022

I’m new to phosphate removal methods other than Chemipure. I’m hoping someone can verify my math so that I don’t remove all phosphate from my tank as I hear Rowaphos works great.
I have a 65 gallon tank I am figuring 50 gallons of water volume.
my phosphate is .48 ppm as of todays test using Hannah 1774.
the instructions included with the Rowaphos states that 100 g of Rowaphos can remove 3 ppm in 100 gallons of saltwater. If I want to get down to .05 ppm or so, I think I need only 8 g of Rowaphos in my media bag. It’s going in an all in one tank.
thank you in advance for any help.

blaxsun · Jul 10, 2022

I use ~500ml of GFO in my 200-gallon system, and with a high bio load it keeps phosphates at around 0.1-0.15ppm. 8g seems a bit light; I'd probably try 20-25g in your media bag at the outset and test every 2-3 days and add/remove accordingly.

Hydrored · Jul 10, 2022

RowaPhos calculator

www.rowaphos-calculator.com

Start on the low end, nothing good happens fast with GFO, especially if you have corals. The Rowa will exhaust quick at first

paparoof · Jul 10, 2022

I use 18 grams of rowaphos in 25 gallons of water - keeps me around .1

polyppal · Jul 10, 2022

Is rowaphos just another brand name GFO?

Hydrored · Jul 10, 2022

polyppal said:
Is rowaphos just another brand name GFO?

Yes

mrpontiac80 · Jul 10, 2022

polyppal said:
Is rowaphos just another brand name GFO?

Well I’m probably not the best guy to answer but yes. It is a phosphate and silicate remover. It seems to be a go to product for many reef keepers. When I got to visit WWC, one of the employees said they use it also.
My tank has been running for about a 1.5 yrs now and I have always been under .1 ppm on phosphate until the last month or so. Hopefully this will help

polyppal · Jul 10, 2022

I have a 68-ish gal that I run about 1/4 cup of High Cap GFO on per week and I run about .04-06 on average (I also minor dose lanthanum and have a hight nutrient system w lots of fish).

Id start there - unless your adding cups of it at a time GFO isn't as hardcore as many think. Especially if your running it in a simple bag-in-sump method vs a proper reactor.

mrpontiac80 · Jul 10, 2022

One more quick question. Instructions say do not rinse, but seems a lot of people do rinse. What do you guys that use it choose?

polyppal · Jul 10, 2022

if its just GFO give it a quick rinse, to rinse out any dust *like you would carbon

haitian_reefer · Jul 10, 2022

3/4 of a cup on my 227 waterbox to keep it under .1 ppm. I tried 1 cup and it bottomed out phosphate.

mrpontiac80 · Jul 11, 2022

Ok so I went ahead and added 1/4 cup to the included media bag and also did a very quick rinse. My phosphate tested .47 ppm this evening. I will try to update the results over the next few days for anyone that may be interested.

blaxsun · Jul 11, 2022

polyppal said:
if its just GFO give it a quick rinse, to rinse out any dust *like you would carbon

Definitely rinse as much of the rust color out as you can. Or you can use a superior alternative like Nyos Phosi-Ex.

haitian_reefer · Jul 11, 2022

Using a media may require more Rowaphos. I tried it before media reactor and found a reactor is way more effective.

mrpontiac80 · Jul 12, 2022

So I added 1/4 cup of Rowaphos to my media bag Sunday night with phosphate at .49 ppm. Fast forward to today and I am testing at .49 ppm still using my Hannah.
I know a media bag is less ideal than a reactor but that’s what I have. Should I wait it out or add more media? Any opinions from users of Rowaphos?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 13, 2022

mrpontiac80 said:
So I added 1/4 cup of Rowaphos to my media bag Sunday night with phosphate at .49 ppm. Fast forward to today and I am testing at .49 ppm still using my Hannah.
I know a media bag is less ideal than a reactor but that’s what I have. Should I wait it out or add more media? Any opinions from users of Rowaphos?

Can you try to get the water to flow through the bag better?

doubleshot00 · Jul 13, 2022

mrpontiac80 said:
One more quick question. Instructions say do not rinse, but seems a lot of people do rinse. What do you guys that use it choose?

I hope you rinsed it.

I have a 90 WV around 75. I use 1/3-1/2 cup every 3-5weeks. And my phosphates fluctuate between .15-.05.

Also if you not using pressure to push water through it it wont work very well. I use a canister filter but also have a BRS mini gfo reactor i use on other tanks.

mrpontiac80 · Jul 13, 2022

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Can you try to get the water to flow through the bag better?

So the water box aio I have uses filter cups on each corner of the rear chambers and those chambers are about 17” deep and 4.5”x 7” square roughly. What I’ve done is taken some egg crate with legs so that the media bag lays on it and the water has to flow through it to get to the next chamber.

mrpontiac80 · Jul 13, 2022

doubleshot00 said:
I hope you rinsed it.

I have a 90 WV around 75. I use 1/3-1/2 cup every 3-5weeks. And my phosphates fluctuate between .15-.05.

Also if you not using pressure to push water through it it wont work very well. I use a canister filter but also have a BRS mini gfo reactor i use on other tanks.

I did a very quick rinse. I know that if using a media bag, it is recommended to double the media. But since this was my first time, I figured less is better.
Mainly, I just don’t know if I should see an immediate decrease or not in phosphate. If it takes some time I’ll wait, but if most everyone sees an immediate decrease than I’m sure I need to add media.

doubleshot00 · Jul 13, 2022

mrpontiac80 said:
I did a very quick rinse. I know that if using a media bag, it is recommended to double the media. But since this was my first time, I figured less is better.
Mainly, I just don’t know if I should see an immediate decrease or not in phosphate. If it takes some time I’ll wait, but if most everyone sees an immediate decrease than I’m sure I need to add media.

Mine takes a day or so for it to start working but im also pressing water through mine and yours is more or less flowing so it may take longer.

Ill give you a run down how i hot my phosphates down from .46 to .09. Took about 3 weeks. I started doing 25% wc every 3 days but watched all my levels intensively. If nitrates got to low i dosed. After about 2 weeks of intense WC schedule i added a small amount of rowaphos 1/8 cup then increased after 4 days. Now my phosphates stay around .08-.15. People that can hover at .03 is like playing the fine line to dinos. Ill take some algae.