angel poop is full of phosphates?

I use the BRS GFO pellets, they don't break down as much and create that GFO dust. There High Capacity GFO looks good too, though I haven't tried that yet.

 

I'm using Two Little Fishies Phosban Phosphate Removal Media

 

i gave some thought to the pellets, though in my head i think that less surface area means less reactivity. i have a buddy who uses only BRS products and is quite annoying about how wonderful all their products are but even he told me not to waste my money on the High Capacity stuff. he felt that the granule were so small that they made their way through the reactor mesh, also the density of it required much more flow than would the regular stuff. on top of all that, what he saw performance-wise did not merit the price tag increase.

in short, would you say that the sole benefit of the pellets over the granules is lower dust? is the performance comparable? or am i sacrificing it for the convenience of low dust?

 

Unless you have an expensive colorimeter like this, Hach - Phosphate, Pocket Colorimeter II Test Kit you should always read a zero. This is because the inhabitants of your tank (bacteria, phytoplankton, algae) are so efficient at grabbing any available phosphorus, that it's not left in your water column to test for. If you ever read phosphates with a regular test kit, that means that you are adding so much phosphates (or removing too few) that you're gonna have a serious algae bloom.

 

yep, this always leads to the "my water's perfect! why do i have algae" complaint. little confession, i very rarely test my water unless something is going wrong (dead inverts, corals closed up, etc).