If you want the cheapest way, a refugium setup right will destroy phosphates brother. I had to take mine offline because it bottomed out my phosphates 3x. I like the 5gal bucket fuge setup myself. Now if you want the lazy also cheap way just hookup microbacter 7 to your doser start off dosing daily then just dial it in from there. Also mb7 combined with biofuel will also wreck phosphates and corals seem to respond well to the combination also. Good luck Reef Dork I love your videos your sense of humor and outlook on reefing is great! Keep it up! I plan to start a channel and do some filming sometime in the near future so I can further do my part to help the hobby. Cheers Mate!
Chummingham's Reef (which is has a massive collection of SPS) is/was running ~0.4-0.6 ppm, and Richard Ross has had upwards of 1 ppm if I'm not mistaken. I believe Dong Zou is running high phosphate as well. I think the days of
IM minimax is available in UK from Charterhouse, we used to distribute IM products in the UK some years back, loved the minimax reactors, shame they’ve been cloned by a cpl of companies now, innovation not imitation should be what propels companies forward in this hobby #smh 🥺
People often do this with deionising resin for RO units. Some run 2 x DI units and move the newest “spent” DI resin to the 2nd, chucking the “oldest” that was in the 2nd, once the TDS meter shows ppm numbers rising again. You keep the DI activity high with the fresh in the 1st and gain from still being able to use any remaining active DI resin in the latter resin unit (because there will always be some still higher up the column.
Or use PhosGuard maybe? No faffing with the tumbling and just one reactor needed. If you are worried about it leeching Aluminium, soak it in RODI for a week ( I change the water every couple of days), dry it out and use a tablespoon or two as needed. Lasts a lot longer for me compared to Rowa and seems much more gentler with bringing down Po4 (no drastic drop of phosphates)
I change my rowaphos weekly,every Monday. I divide monthly average phosphate reduction amount and change small amount over weekly. Small and frequent change over will help to reduce alkalinity drop and with too fast phosphate reduction. By the way no reactor is needed ,just high flow area in filter media bag will do.
I actually like this method....I hate changing my gfo in my brs reactor....it's not hard....just a 15 min job but still none the less not as easy as this quick change reactor ....
I think you'll probably find that your sps corals will grow slower or even start to die if you reduce your phosphates down to 0.03. They will he used to being in a higher phosphate tank. Me personally, I would be happy with 0.1. Not to high, not to low.
I used to run carbon and GFO, but now have have to dose NO3 and PO4 just keep levels detectible in a wall to wall SPS dominated system. Still, interesting to see how that fancy reactor of yours works. Didn't know it could be so easy. Thanks, ReefDork!
Thanks Alex - perfect timing as I’m just looking at these following your recommendation in your last live stream. I’m presuming it’s easy to control the flow so the media tumbles? Currently using a torq reactor so can’t wait to get some space back.
Another great video! 2 questions. |Should Rowa Phos tumble? I heard that it breaks up and escapes. Also where does the water exit the chamber? I hate those that water tumbles out of the top.
It's most effective when it tumbles gently in a reactor. This exits at the top of the enclosed section then properly exits at the bottom - it doesn't make a trickling noise...
If you pack it full, the GFO doesn't tumble but I still found it to be effective so I wouldn't worry personally as long as you can see water exiting at the top
Nice little device. I will keep it in mind if my tank ever has a Phosphate issue. Last time I checked it was at .19, is that too high? I heard you can use Vodka to lower your PO4, get them fishes drunk - lol
Liking this idea, it still doesn't remove any underlying issues... as to why the levels are so high buy for management seems great. I'm no different BTW, still have .18+ and haven't determined the source yet. I have seen how forced water through the rowaphos is like night and day.
People get obsessed with po4 if you not got algea and you got good coral colour and growth 0.3 down to 0.1 ppm is ok with a no3 of 15 to 20 ppm if it ant broke
How did you get on with these? They seem quite hard to get hold of. I am thinking of adding one as they look so easy and I maybe more inclined to changing out my rowa or even actually using rowa in the first place 😉
Not as such, but check out my Reef Factory Smart Tester review. Since getting that, my nitrates are down significantly (0.9ppm as of today). I've since switched to a nyos torq reactor with nyos phosi-ex.
What your saving you are burning in Energy costs, along with price of unit and space it takes up. As your taking one out and fill up, Just do that in The first place with one. Very unnessary and actualy more work
This is a different topic though? If you look at it from the means of maximising your Rowaphos and to make swapping Rowaphos easy, this is a great approach. Now, energy costs is a seperate topic..and at a lower level the cost and space. This is my take...this hobby can either be a "spend" and enjoy one..or "spend", "enjoy" and "make some money to reinvest". If someone has premium corals and able to grow them well with nutrient controls, surely they can sell frags, and it goes back into the tank thus reducing costs..to me, this is the smart way to do this hobby. Not only are you making money to reinvest, you are helping the reefing community too. Also, c'mon..there is a reason why the dude is pumping out weekly videos, it ain't just as a diary..this is a side hustle too that funds his hobby as well!
@@rudra7615 but it's not smart, rowa is not that expensive, neither is dosing vodka or even Nopox. To go through that to get potentialy 20% based on hear say comments from owner umis silly. Go with 80 to 100 per month and replace. I do. Like this youtuber over most but to potentialy get another 20% and do all this is silly.