phosban reactor

[cwschoon]

Search engine is down....any experience with the phosban reactor out there? Which powerhead did you use? Do you think it is better than putting phosban in a power filter or canister?
Thanks.

[Bax]

I can tell you I have been running the PhosBan in a media bag in my canister for about two months and although there has been improvment, it's just not doing the job. I am fighting a nasty red slime problem and PO4 has dropped to .025 from .05 the red slime is less but still a daily hassle.

I ordered a reactor and it should be in tomorrow. I ordered a Rio 180 to run it on. I think it'll be big enough to get proper flow through the media ... we'll see. I 'll let you know how I make out

[cwschoon]

I have been not overly impressed with phosban. I first had it under the trickle filter flow but was still reading PO. I then moved some into my HOT magnum but still reading 0.5 or so. I was skimming out some of the brown gunk for a while although I did not see it visibly in the tank. I never had any issues w. the regular "white" PO remover and may go back. What flow is the rio 180? I believe you are to use a max 100 gal flow.

[cwschoon]

Bax: .25 is a great reading! Look elsewhere for the cause of the cyanobacteria. Do a search when you can...if your flow and perameters are good, see what people say about droping in an EM tablet or two. It will kill the slime and in my experience, won't hurt anything, even though antibiotic treatment is a drastic step.

[Bax]

The Rio 180 will only do 80-90 gph at 1 to 2' of head so my thinking was it would be perfect to run wide open with this media reactor with 130 g of PhosBan media.

I am going to start the reactor with PhosBan, if it does not do the trick I'll switch media in a month or so.

I always thought thar your PO4 reading should be zero?

And I am really hesitant to use antibioticts in a reef.

[cwschoon]

I was an industry rep for a long time..... .25 PO is amazing! I have used EM several times over the last 15 years or so and if used properly, no problem. Just be sure you are not just curing the symptom, when you should be curing the cause. In other words, if your water perameters are good, you have a skimmer and are doing things as you should, use EM, get rid of the slime and it won't come back....Turn off your skimmer and suspend carbon/phosban if you use it. Sure, it is drastic but it works. Do a search and see what others think. I used to call on the best stores in W. New York and Canada and know many who have used EM w. no problem.

[R33f3r]

I have been running a phosban reactor for about 3 months and it has finally contributed to the demise of hair algae. It takes time to remove po4 that is stored in the sand and lr. Just gotta have some patience along with your usual water changes. You will kill it. Also, how old are your lights?

[LCGoldman]

Originally posted by cwschoon
I was an industry rep for a long time..... .25 PO is amazing! I have used EM several times over the last 15 years or so and if used properly, no problem. Just be sure you are not just curing the symptom, when you should be curing the cause. In other words, if your water perameters are good, you have a skimmer and are doing things as you should, use EM, get rid of the slime and it won't come back....Turn off your skimmer and suspend carbon/phosban if you use it. Sure, it is drastic but it works. Do a search and see what others think. I used to call on the best stores in W. New York and Canada and know many who have used EM w. no problem.

Side Question: What is EM?

Thanks,

[ralphie]

Interesting thread here ...

[Bax]

cwschoon -

Not to hijack your thread but my tank was started in early Jan 04. So it's new. I cycled with 10 lbs LR from the LFS (some really sharp looking Tonga). After cycle added 30 lbs TBS LR and a clreanup crew. At four months I started adding livestock.
I have - a pair of o. clowns; a fridmani pseudochromis; lots of TBS hitch hikers; astrea snails and zebra hermits; for corals - GSP, zoos, frog spawn, trumpet, favia, porites, yellow sea finger gorg.
For lighting I have a 175w MH on a M57 ballast, 55w PC daylight, 15w NO 03 Actinic, and DIY LED moon lights
Actinitcs come on at 8 AM off at 9 PM
PC come on at 10 AM off at 9 PM
MH come on at 11 AM off at 6 PM (MH are 5 months old now)
LED on at 9 PM off at 8 AM

Water Params
Am 0
Nit 0
Nat usaully 0 never over 10
pH 7.9 to 8.2
temp 79 to 81 F
Alk 13 - 14
Calc 400 +
PO4 now usually about .25 has been .5 or higher
I dose Kents Super buffer, Calcium, Iodine, Magnesium & Strontium with makeup water about 3 quarts daily

The red slime starts up in the AM just after the PC turns on and really flourishes after the MH turns on. when I get home at night there are thick mats here and there on the LR and a coating across the open sand. Only very strong current seems to have any effect on slowing its growth in any of these areas. It get on my corals and is definitly adding stress. The use of PhosBan in the canister has lessend the growth but not ended it.

My guess is that the TBS LR is so loaded with live stuff when it is added to the tank that I am paying for not using cured LR with this red slime bloom, as long as it steadily improves, it'll be worth the extra effort in the long run but this is taking a lot of patients to address.

What cuases other than an elevated PO4 can bring on a red slime bloom?

[cwschoon]

First, let me say I am no expert but have always had marine fish and corals. I did have the benifit of calling on amazing and awful stores for quite a few years too...I am sure many that are more learned can offer better advice. As far as causes and cures,if you do a search on "cyanobacteria" you will get all of the info you could possibly need. EM is eurethromyacin(SP?) in tab form sold in every fish store. You will be told to never introduce antibiotics to your reef and in general, this is good advice but for me, too black and white. Again,if you use antibiotics, be careful you address the CAUSE and not the symptom. For me, if I had an outbreak...only happened once that was really bad but have had a few more minor instances....and my water perameters were good, I would have no problem using EM to get rid of the slime. One of my tanks is a 75 gal reef that probably has 45 gals of water after the contents are factored in- For me, I always run carbon and PO resin because I overfeed my tank. I always skim and do 7-14 gals water change every other week-If this tank was covered in slime, I would drop in 4 or 5 EM tablets, turn off the skimmer...it would go nuts... and discontinue carbon/resins. You don't want to use too much EM but if you don't use enough and some of the slime lives, it may develop a resistance to the antibiotic and that is a cycle you don't want to get in. After 24-36 hours or so, I would do a 25-35% water change, put back carbon and start skimming. Watch the skimmer as it will really be foaming. Last but not least...many don't realize that lighting has a big effect on cyanobacteria. Really old bulbs will favor red slime growth. Again, this is what I would do. As as many people the same question then decide for yourself.

[Scuba Dog]

I have a DIY fluidised reacotr that I charge with Rowaphos.....started it up and running on my SPS / clam reef at the end of may. It did the trick no cyno and starved out the green hair algae...also my sps growth rate went from stagnat to good.......I also have a quality Euroreef skimmer, and a cpr hang on the back fuge...plus i use rodi... since i have a few too many fish and i overfeed , I have to have some help with the phosphates......whevever I start to see a patch of cyno start back up i recharge my reactor with some freash Rowa.........and a few days later the problem is gone for a bout an month and a half to two months....

[jdieck]

Well... Let's see were to start with my war story.

I have been fighting Cyano for a while covering all bases just to see it grow as if nothing...
For all my research the basics I found is that it can be caused/promoted by:
a) Excess Nutrients in the water Nitrate and Phosphate
b) Improper lighting length wave and intensity
c) Insuficient water changes (Affects (a) Above)
d) Insuficient water flow.
e) Excess Accumulated Organics.
f) Insuficient cleaning crew

I have spent quite some money on this as you may see:
here is what I did and still nothing until....
a) Trickle my skimmer to increase production. It is processing 1200 Gal/Hr for a 225 gal tank! Nitrates totally undetectable by LaMotte. This is less than 0.25 PPM! Cyano... Happy
b) Switched my radiums 20K to Ushios 10K got faster amaizing growth from my corals. Cyano... Happy
c) Switched to feed my refugium (loaded with Cyano) from the main drain to the main return (Purified water). Cyano... Happy
d) Replaced Fuge 55 watt PC lighting with two 250 MH. Cyano... Happy. I use half of the fuge for frags now.
e) Manually vaccum it our from the sand and rock surface, use brush on 330 pounds of Live Rock to clean take usually 8 to 12 hours once a week. Cyano... Disapear for a couple of days just to be in full bloom after that.. Happy
f) Cleaned/ replaced and added more pumps for circulation. Cyano.. Happy
g) Added Ozonizer. ORP increased from 300-310 to 340-360. Cyano... Happy
h) Added Phosban reactor and extra canister replacing Phosban once a week (Yes 500 grams of it). Phosphate difficult to read with Salifert, Got Hach test kit. Phosphate undetectable. This is less than 0.05 ppm Cyano... Happy
i) Increased water changes from 10%/week to twice 20% per week. Cyano Happy...
j) to my existing 200 or so snails I added 150 more Cerith, Nerite, Turbo, Nassarius and Trochus snails plus and four sand stars. Cyano.... Happy.
k) Reduced Feeding to less than half. Cyano Happy

As a result of all this actions Nitrate, Phosphate, Nitrite, Ammonia all absolutely undetectable. All small traces of hair algae, green algae completelly disappear, my fuge Chaeto stopped growing (Full of Cyano by the way) and had no longer Diatoms apear on the panes (Used to clean once a week) and the Cyano.. well growing and covering up to the snail shells!.

After a couple of months and $2500 poorer last week I decided that what was left was what I could not really measure which was excess organics despite the Ozone, Skimmer, water changes and reduced feeding and despite my reluctancy I decided to Nuke it....

Instead of using Eritromicin, I purchased two doses of Chemi-Clean and two of Red slime Remover... Both are supposed to oxidize organics.
Last Friday I made the first full dose application of Chemi-clean. ORP dropped from 350 to 150 in less that 5 minutes after the application as the Oxygen in the water reacted with the organics. After 24 hours back to 350 and I made a 20% water change... The cyano Happy... Sunday, After 48 hours I made a second application. This time after 24 hours all the cyano in the fuge was gone. The Chaeto was green again. About 90 % of the Cyano in the main went away and most amaizingly all corals polyp extension and clam's mantles were as I have never seem them before. All inverts, snails and ssand critters still crawling around. The rock coraline was bricgt and in just three days I have noticed it growing again. Something I have never seen is that within two days of the application my three cleaner shrimps and some of the crabs molted! (Might there be some Iodine in the product?) and my Clown pair spawn again!

Some of the remaining patches of cyano started have started growing back but this weekend (After a week of first tratment. I will go for it one more time. but this time I will vaccum the remaining patches before the application and use the Red Slime Remover.

My take of all this is that unless you have something very wrong with your system. Cyano is just there just no matter what you do. I am reluctant to use any unknown chemicals but I got to the point of either the Cyano kills my system or I kill it trying to kill the Cyano so I went for the second and seems like I am winning at least one battle.

If this works I intend on keep on using either of this products once a month or two months to keep it in line.

Wish me luck...

[Scuba Dog]

jdieck

I wish you the best of luck, any idea on the source thats feeding the cyno.......Im wondering if its leaching out of the sand bed or the rocks?

[jdieck]

I used to feed twice a day, add cyclop and DT a couple of times a week, plus vitamins and garlic with every feeding and daily coral vite. My best guess is that the organics from all of this just kept accumulating.
On the list I forgot to mention a couple of more things I did. I added a Kalk reactor to support my Calcium reactor in the hope that high alkalinity (Increased from 9 to 11) will also reduce its proliferation.
Also what I did, suspecting too much accumulation under the sand bed as you mention I used a 3/8" dia plastic tubing probe to syphon different spots deep into the sand but the water always came out fairly clear.
When the Cyano apeared the sponge material began to die At the end my conclusion is that the organics accumulated first by the sponges (fair amount in between and under the rock) and then while it starte shrinking they were transferred to the Cyano itself and just cycled back with further accumulation every time I cleaned it and them being binded the skimmer and ozone were uneffective in removal.

[Scuba Dog]

Organics may be the problem, DO you run carbon? But the O3 should have taken care of that,

[Bax]

I am pretty convinced in my case the source is the TBS LR.

jdieck ... I feel you pain brother

[jdieck]

Run Kent Carbon. 24/7 2 pounds replaced every 10 days.

Bax. Thanks.

[Scuba Dog]

Im stumped........

[jimwat]

After about 3 weeks the Phosban reactor is helping eliminate the problem with hair algae in the main tank. However, it seems to have little or no effect on the cyano growing in the fuge. 3 days ago I decided to change the lighing on the fuge from 130w 65k PC (running 24 hours) to a 250w 10k MH (running on a light cycle opposite of the main). Almost all of the cyano has now melted away.

[jdieck]

Jim: Watch for it on shaded areas or under rock sides.

[jimwat]

Originally posted by jdieck
Jim: Watch for it on shaded areas or under rock sides. I wondered about that. I do not have much shade in the fuge (just turtle grass no rocks), and I have not had any problems with cyano in the main tank.

I am thinking about moving one of my larger rocks to the fuge that is overgrown with Athelia (that I have lost control of). But I will wait a few weeks to see how the fuge is going to react to the new lighting more long term.

[cwschoon]

my question is: is the reactor hardware and powerhead worth it? I am running phosban through a power filter now. Still not overly impressed....

[jimwat]

Originally posted by cwschoon
my question is: is the reactor hardware and powerhead worth it? I am running phosban through a power filter now. Still not overly impressed.... I was using a phosphate sponge for a while with little noticeable affects. I did not try the phosban in a flowthrough bag, but the phosban in the reactor is showing good results after a few weeks. The noticeable changes have been that the glass does not need to be cleaned as often, and the existing hair algae is turning brown and/or stopped growing. The change was slow and not that dramatic, but since I have been battling hair algae for over a year, any positive results make it easy for me to justify the cost.

[cwschoon]

what are your PO levels? I am considering going back to the regular white stuff. Using Phosban in a power filter with the bag....I am skimming it out although I can't visibly see it in the tank. I never had an issue with the kent/seachem white stuff.

[jdieck]

If you want a dramatic change Rowaphos acts a lot faster than Phosban although both have similar capacity to absorve phosphates. Phosban just takes longer.
Be careful with Rowa, It is so fast that IMO the sudden change is what creates the observed problem with coral bleaching.

Capacity absorption of Phoisgard (A lot cheaper than Phosban or Rowa) is also about the same with reaction time similar to Phosban. The disadvantage is that it has proven to release Aluminum which may affect some soft corals. Washing it in RO/DI water to remove the dusty particles significantly reduces the Aluminum release.

[jdieck]

Well.. time for an update on my fight with Cyano.
As per my previous (somehow long) post and two treatments with Chemi clean, the remining patches continue growing and some new patches apeared on the sand bed.
As Ozone and Chemic-clean shall have taken care of suspended Organics I started suspecting that somehow the organics shall be accumulated somewhere (Suspicion of potential DSB crash) so time for one more desperate measure.
After vaccuming out (again) all cyano that I could I connected a Mechanical filter and with a powerhead I started blowing off the dirt from the rock this time did not stopped until no more stuf was blowing away. (Took a couple of pases and about two hours).
Then the real No No. I decided to vaccum the sand bed that I could reach as deep as I could and OMG, I have seen skimmate cleaner than the stuff I pulled out. Critters and Pod will enough survive under the rock and from the fuge so I saw a little risk.
While cleaning some of the under sand stuff must have gotten out as the ORP dropped from 360 to 315 (Not Bad considering what I was doing).

Once clean I decided to go for the third tratment but this time with a full dose of Red Slime Remover.

This stuff really acts differently than the Chemi Clean. It did not affected the ORP at all like Chemi Clean but PH drop slightly, the water turned Yellow Green and of course the skimmer started foaming like if there were no tomorrow so I turned it off and waited.. and waitedd.. and waited...

24 hours the water still foamy, som elittle patches of Cyano still there and the water nasty yellow so I waited...

Next morning (48 hours) I expected to find everything belly up and bleaching when I saw the water was still yellow but man was I so wrong.
All cyano completely gone, corals expanded, fish as hungry as ever and snails grazzing around where once there was cyano and I could swear some coralline started to grow again on the aquarium walls.
Added 3 pounds of Carbon, made a 20% water change and the water was clear as ever.

One week later no sign of Cyano any more. Alkalinity had dropped from 10 to 8, either the slime remover or the increase Nitrification with all that dead cyano may have had some effect.)
Tested for Phosphates, Nitrates and Ammonia (just in case it contained Eritromicin) but no traces of either.
Did one more rock blow to remove any remining dead matter and again vaccum the sand as deep as I could. Some dirt and Skimmate like liquid still got some out but in a lot less amount.
Then another 20% water change, replaced the phosban in both reactors, replaced the carbon with 2 pounds of fresh one and cleaned the sump and the skimmer (took the time to clean the skimmer tower also and replace the bio-bolls in the ETSS.

Added 12 spoons of Bicarbonate and 12 spoons of Turbo Calcium and 500 ml of Magnessium Tech I bringing alkalinity back to 10.5 dKH, Ca to 440 ppm and Magnessium to 1275 ppm and increased Ozone to 150 Mg/hr.

I noticed some of my Cerith snails started to drop dead. Noticing that none of the ones in the fuge has suffered I could not blame the chemical but the main was now so clean that they seemed just to be starving so I transferred the reminign ones to the fuge where they seem as happy as ever.


So after a week and half of tratment:
a) No traces of Cyano.
b) Water clear, parameters stable. (No traces of Nitrate or Phosphate that was my worry)
c) Sand white as new.
d) More bristtles and other worms and critters staring to fill in as I type. (seen some new ones already)
e) Coralline growing back
f) Coral colors and coralline return to their past brightness.
g) Diatoms start growing back as fast as ever (What a pleasurable pain)

Did I win the war? amy be not and too soon to tell. I intend to continue vaccuming the sand at least monthly and depend more on the fuge unless Nitrates start showing up.

For what I saw Slime Remover is just too powerful to use regularly but Chemi-Clean might do a good "preventive Maintenance work if used may be at half does every other month.

My take of all this:

After trying all you can to get rid of Cyano use chemicals as a last resource. If you have to; try Chemi-Clean first as it seems to be the least agressive or Slime Remover at half the dose unless you have a heavy infestation then go full strenght on the remover.
I will try to keep cleaning as much as I can just in case there is still some dead stuff around and will take this "success" one week at a time.
I think I just prevented (Shall I say just postponed) a DSB crash so also my take is if I have to replace the sand, there is no damage in cleaning the one I have, some stuff will still remain under the rock enough for the DSB to be functioning and see if the Fuge takes over. In any case I more hopefull going forward.

Thanks for your patience everyone as at least for me this makes for an interesting story (at least for a reefer)..

[mgny]

my phosban reactor has been running for about 6 months and has eliminated my hair and cyano problem. my 180 has many fish which are fed often so the reactor has done wonders. I change the phosban every 2 months or so, when the cyano starts to reappear.I use a gravity siphon to feed the reactor which sits on the bottom of my 30 gal sump.The flow from the 3/8 line was too strong so a splitter was added to the end . This diverted some of the flow to a carbon chamber. A ball valve could also be used. Not sure why most use a powerhead when gravity is free and most of all maintainence free. Make sure the siphon is at the proper height as to not overflow the sump in a power outage. I wasnt comfortable hanging the unit, my friends was hanging and the supply hose somehow disconnected he had a flood. Mine sits on the bottom of the sump no chance for a flood.

[Bax]

jdieck

Thanks for the report. It's comforting to think that something, even if it's WMD-like in fashion, just might work on cyano.

My PhosBan Reactor has been up for just over two weeks now. There is no dramatic effect, but the cyano is slowing down. Of course, my MH bulb blew out and the new one arrives tomorow so I am expecting a return of the cyano to its full glory once the MH starts burning in again.

So I am planning to go WMD as well. I picked up some Kent's PolyOx and couldn't find the Red Slime Remover. I'll search for the RSR this weekend. I added a new fish a few weeks ago and I like to keep the UV sterizer running at a germacidal pace for three to four weeks after a new addition. It is fed by my carbon canister so I don't want to take the UV off line just yet. I figure the cyano isn't going anywhere so I have plenty of time to plan my revenge.

[jdieck]

Revange is sweet... If you apply either Chemi-Clean or Slime remover you will need to remove the carbon and the phosban and shut off skimmer and sterilizer.

Good Luck!

[cwschoon]

All you have to do is turn off skimmer, take out carbon, drop in some EM. Wait 24 hrs, do a water change, put carbon/resin back in and problem solved. After that, just make sure water perams stay fine and lighting is good. Also, you should not dose calcium and buffer at the same time.

[jdieck]

IME I would wait on the EM (Eritromicin) until after the Chemi-Clean has beet tried. It seems to be less agressive.

cwschoon:
Do you know if Red Slime Remover is Eritromicin based? I got that impression but could not find any references as to it's formulation.

[cwschoon]

Chemi- Clean and red slime remover are aggressive and do not work as well as EM. No chemicals are good and you will not find what is in RS remover....or I never could. Do a search on cyanobacteria and you will find the answer to every conceivable question you have related to red slime. If your water perams are good, your lighting is good, you use a skimmer and do regular water changes, you won't get cyano outbreaks. If you have cyano and can syphon it out, great. If not, just wipe it out with EM and be done with it. So some benificial bacteria dies too...no big deal as long as you have a stable system.

[Nanz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=3538572#post3538572 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cwschoon
Chemi- Clean and red slime remover are aggressive and do not work as well as EM. No chemicals are good and you will not find what is in RS remover....or I never could. Do a search on cyanobacteria and you will find the answer to every conceivable question you have related to red slime. If your water perams are good, your lighting is good, you use a skimmer and do regular water changes, you won't get cyano outbreaks. If you have cyano and can syphon it out, great. If not, just wipe it out with EM and be done with it. So some benificial bacteria dies too...no big deal as long as you have a stable system.

How much Erythromycin did you dose per valume of water? The reason I ask is because most products are sold for fish diseases and I suspected the dosing on the container would be suitable for a QT tank. I would not want to overdose Erythromycin in my tank.

[cwschoon]

I would do/have done pretty well one tab per 10 gallons, just like the instructions say. If I had 90 gals, I may put in 5-6 tabs...but this is just my opinion and experience.