rowa phos question

[ruggirello2]

I have a 220 gallon system and my phosphates are reading .5 ppm. I am now using a phosban reactor with 100ml of rowa phos. The directions said to use 200ml with my size tank. It has been going for about 5 days and the phosphate is still .5 ppm. I didn't use full strength because someone I know nuunze used it at full strength and he said his sps turned white. What should I do?

[bertoni]

I'd get a second opinion on the phosphate level, first of all. That measurement is believable, but a second opinion can be handy, if it's not too hard to get. That level of phosphate is very high, so the media might be getting saturated very rapidly. I suspect you'll have to add more of it or change it fairly frequently to drop the phosphate level.

[ruggirello2]

how frequent and how much to add. Is rowaphos a good product, a friend was telling about GFO from bulk reef supply. That is probably the correct amount of phosphate because I was neglecting the tank for 3 months. My nitrate was probably 30ppm and now it is like 5-10 ppm.

[bertoni]

RowaPhos seems to be a fine product, but we have no objective data on how well the various GFO products perform.

If you're sure the phosphate kit is okay, you could try testing some water from the output of the filter. If it matches the level in the tank, the GFO is shot. I would keep the amount of media the same, but measure the output from the filter from time to time to see how long it's taking to saturate the media. The media could be lasting as little as a few hours. You might need a lot of media in that size system, but sudden changes can be bad.

[luther1200]

I had much better results when I switched from ROWAphos to BRS HC GFO. You might want to check it out when you run out of the ROWA. Its actually several times cheaper and much better, IME.