GFO and any negative effect.

Aluminum oxide is bad news. It constantly leaches and reabsorbs the phosphates.

 

The activated alumina products leach contaminants back into the tank when they are exhausted. The ferric oxide or iron impregnated sand products bind the contaminants and do not release it no matter how saturated they are. GFO has been used to remove arsenic from drinking water for years for that very reason and is EPA and ANSI/NSF approved.

 

lol I was about to say 5 is extremely high.

personally I would shoot for .1 on average, .5 is probably the high end of whats acceptable.

I run my tank around .03 for my acros.

 

Some personal experiences with GFO and with Phosguard

GFO = not all products/brands are created equal, and this includes the instructions for use of said product - I have had LPS corals expell symbiotic algae due to adding to much GFO

if you use it early days, before you have corals in etc , then using the stated dose is fine as the chemisty change is not going to bother anything
if you use it after detecting PO4 in your set up, thats when you need to start with a half dose, and gradually increase the QTY so the change in chemistry is more controlled

if you allow phosphates to build up, then the addition of any GFO product achieves a faster reduction of PO4 if you use half the amount and change it twice as often IME
With high phosphate levels the media becomes exhausted quickly and you end up running the stuff for extra days and its doing nothing, and thats why some people dont feel GFO is doing anything

IME GFO is a great preventitive media, and I add it to a system just after cycling even when PO4 is zero - and on last couple of set ups experienced very little algae issues
IME GFO - is a good cure for PO4 problems but its addition alone wont eliminate any algae issues you have rapidly - but with regular changes, combined with other managing methods, can be a usefull weapon in the war against algae

Phosgaurd
I have used this product also and found it to be excellent at helping to control problems like cyno (red slime)
I am aware of the issues that this Aluminum based product is reported as having but did not actually experience any negatives from using it
I have been told by someone whose opinion I trust, that soft corals, like leathers and toadstools can be negatively affected by this product, they spend more time closed

so based on that its not something I wanted to continue using in my reef set up but
IMO for a FOWLR or a FO set up, then this product is worth considering as an alternative to GFO

Steve

 

"Does phosphate removers cause any harm to your corals?"...the answer is, depending on the type of corals you keep, how you feed and how long you run it. I've used Phosban and Pura Phoslock in the past on my mixed reef. From my experience, a lot of soft corals like a bit of phosphate (I try to keep it less than 0.25). Again, this is just my experience, if you run GFO for too long it sucks up all the nutrients in your tank, you will be algae free but you'll start seeing color loss and slowed growth in some corals.

I haven't run any phosphate removers on my tank in over a year but we were recently on vacation and I used an autofeeder (flake and pellets), when we got back I got some brown algae so I'm running phoslock for a few days.

 

Since I brought up the aluminum issues.... here is the reference article by Randy Holmes-Farley that gave me sufficient pause to just avoid the issue completely since other products were available without aluminum.

and here's Randy Holmes-Farley's article on GFO.

Hope that helps
Mark