Phosphate

[Stephen]

Is there a "natural" phosphate remover? Or what is the best way to remove them?

Thanks

Stephen

[Tim Marvin]

Leathers, caulerpa, clams.

[Richard]

Dripping kalkwasser precipitates phosphate out of water, macroalgaes can help as well. Phosguard also works well but is the most expensive route.

[GaryP]

Definitely macroalgaes. Because of their rapid growth rates they are the most effective means to export phosphate. Other critters may act as a phosphate sink, but they probably won't grow fast enough to make an appreciable difference. You have to have biomass to effectively export any nutrient.

Gary

[Jenn]

Wish I would have known about these ways insted of buying the $17.99 phosphate sponge.

[dan]

need a fuge to grow macroalgaes that will rid of that BAD!BAD! phosphate :evil:

[Stephen]

I have a fuge with lots of macro and 3 mangrove trees. But I'm still fighting red cyno. I remove as much as possible but it continues to grow in the same places. I also put a power head blowing directly on one of the rock and it still grows back! I have 3 clams in the tank, one is a 6" squmosia and the other are 3-4" maxiumas. I've also run a Phosphate sponge in the past but with no luck, and I drip Kalk 24/7.

As stated the fuge has tons of macro, do I need to remove some of it to kick start it? It is densely packed with spagitti. I thought I read on RC that there is a red macro that is really good at removing Phosphate. Has anyone heard this before?



Stephen

[longhorn_20m]

I definitely agree that macroalgae is the answer to keep some algae undercontrol. I have figured that out, at first I had my tank setup and then added a rock that had grape cauperla over it with zoos, the a few weeks after adding it you could tell the macro took off and filled the rock entirely and choked out the zoos. I then removed it to get rid of the algae, since my tank is a small nano, well what you know, got the macro off, but in turn killed the zoos i guess from scrubbing too hard. Then whole tank went to crap. Started over using the live rock and misc corals I had, reset it up and got rid of dead stuff. WEll what you know algae is bad again hard, been a month or so, and ammonia levels are undectable, so I'm heading off today to get some more macro algae, and hopefully can keep it under control this time.

[JimD]

"Do I need to remove some of it to kickstart it?"
Absolutely! If youre not removing, "pruning" youre not exporting any nutrients. Macros and kalk are the best ways to control P04.

[GaryP]

Any plant will grow more quickly if it is "grazed." Think about the grass in your lawn. It grows faster when its mowed than if not mowed. By thinning out the macroalgae you are keeping it in a growth stage, rather than in a mature stage. Phosphate, and other nutrients, will be utilized much more readily by rapidly growing macro.

By simply removing the macro from the tank it is truly exported. If you feed it back to your herbivores in the main tank it will be recycled. Some percentage is absorbed by the herbivores through growth but much will be excreted back to the water. IMO, the organic phosphate in herbivore waste is much more likely to be skimmed than inorganic phosphate.

I'd like to hear what some of you think on this topic.

Gary