Phosphate Sponge Pros & Cons

[Brad]

I've been having trouble with green algae growth on my sand bed the last
couple months. I feed very little, my lights are only on about 10 hours a
day and my skimmer is working great. My crabs and sand sifting star do a
pretty good job of keeping things mixed up but I have to manually stir
things up every 3-4 days to keep it from progressing. The algae is not
affecting my corals, rocks, glass just the sand bed. Today at my LFS I
mentioned my problem and they suggested a Phosphate Sponge. I'd like to
hear anyone's pros / cons on the use of this.

Thanks,
Brad

[Marc Levenson]

Brad, you first need to test your Phosphates to see if you are even dealing with
that problem. I know, I know... you need to buy yet another test kit.

To match Natural Sea Water (NSW), you want .03ppm. When I bought my 55g set up
used, the phosphates were 2.0 ppm. I used Kent's Phosphate sponge (1 lb)
divided into two Magnum 350 canister filters for exactly 48 hours like the
instructions stated. Phosphates tested at .2ppm.

I was happy. Over time with water changes and controlled feedings, it dropped
to .03 on its own.

Marc


Brad wrote:

> I've been having trouble with green algae growth on my sand bed the last
> couple months. I feed very little, my lights are only on about 10 hours a
> day and my skimmer is working great. My crabs and sand sifting star do a
> pretty good job of keeping things mixed up but I have to manually stir
> things up every 3-4 days to keep it from progressing. The algae is not
> affecting my corals, rocks, glass just the sand bed. Today at my LFS I
> mentioned my problem and they suggested a Phosphate Sponge. I'd like to
> hear anyone's pros / cons on the use of this.
>
> Thanks,
> Brad

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[Aquatic-Care]

Brad,

Phosphate is created all the time in any aquarium. A test kit would
be a good idea (seatest) . I use a product called Phosguard from Seachem. It
works great on all my maintenance jobs.

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