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Unread 06/02/2008, 11:50 PM   #1
castroantonio
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Rowaphos = Algae!!!

I have been using Rowaphos, for a 2 weeks, cause I check my PO4 and was little high, I put 1 lt. of rowaphos in a reactor. (I have a 300 gallons systems). the PO4 was eliminated but Im watching algae growing!! before the rowaphos I had not any algae in my tank.

and Im watching that is growing a diatom algae, and some cyano.
I remember the past January I use rowaphos and always I had a problem with algae. when I eliminated the rowaphos from my system, the algae was eliminated.

rowaphos could be the cause of this problem?
someone has had this problem?
or only a coincidence?
Thank you
Antonio


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Unread 06/03/2008, 12:09 AM   #2
sjames
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Ive seen more than one report of this.

GFO should bind silica as well as phosphate so diatom blooms seem an unlikely outcome.

Could it be that some algae in the systems are iron limited and the GFO adds some iron back into the system causing a bloom until the phosphates go low enough to stop the growth?

I run rowaphos myself and I have almost no algae of any sort.


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Unread 06/03/2008, 12:28 AM   #3
bertoni
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Hmm, interesting. The GFO might put a tiny bit of iron into the water column. Most of it should be insoluble:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.php

The timing might be coincidence. What was the phosphate level before adding the RowaPhos, and what is it now?


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Unread 06/03/2008, 12:29 AM   #4
castroantonio
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was 0.5 and no algae (clean tank!)
now .03 and I have algae diatom and some cyano.


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Unread 06/03/2008, 01:54 AM   #5
2thdeekay
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Also, what Phosphate test do you use?


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Unread 06/03/2008, 04:46 AM   #6
Randy Holmes-Farley
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Maybe phosphate is still not low enough to be growth limiting to the algae that you have (at 0.03 ppm), and you eliminated a growth limitation from iron, as mentioned above. So it is possible that replacing it with fresh binder may help reduce the algae.


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Unread 06/03/2008, 09:23 AM   #7
JR's Reef
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You know i have the same problem but i dont use rowa. I use bulkreef supply's. I use a hanna photometer and it tested 0.03 and have hair algae


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Unread 06/03/2008, 10:08 AM   #8
jansenwrasse
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most like you guys are seeing the phosphates are bound into the Hair algae and other algae. So as the Algae dies or gets eaten the phosphate gets re-dissolved into the water. The rowa or GFO comes into play then. If you are not using a phosphate removing media or some export means then you will see the algae go from here to there.

I would presume that the tanks were bound to get the algae in them at some point in time and to think that the phosphate remover sped that process up is possible (Fe) but highly unlikely. I think that the time was soon coming.


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