Benefit my Tank

[Tyler1993]

What is the best thing to run in my reactor to benefit my tank?

[TigeBell]

Active Carbon or GFO. Depends on water parameters and/or clear you want your water to look.

[Timfish]

Carbon.

[Tyler1993]

All my water parameters are zero except phosphates. Phosphates are reading 0.29

[FraggledRock]

if phosphates, run GFO

[dkeller_nc]

To give you some more specific advice on using GFO, what size is your tank, what kind of inhabitants (i.e., SPS, LPS, or soft corals, or a mixture) do you have?

[Tyler1993]

LPS AND couple of soft corals. About 7 fish

[dkeller_nc]

We also need your tank size - the amount of GFO to use is based on water volume and the target end phosphate concentration (SPS tanks are typically run at a lower dissolved phosphate concentration than soft coral or LPS tanks).

[Tyler1993]

It's 145 gallon total water volume.

[dkeller_nc]

Given that water volume, I'd start with about 1/2 cup of GFO, based on the absorptive capacity of Bulk Reef Supply's High-Capacity GFO (different GFO brands will have different absorptive capacity). Change it once per month to start, then slowly increase the frequency of change-out to once every 2 weeks or so, and increase the amount to 1 cup per change.

The reason for this slow ramp-up is that very rapidly depleting the tank water of phosphate can cause coral bleaching and/or tissue recession.