GFO leaching

Guys

I have a reactor and in the beginning I was running too much presure through the reactor. I also let it go for too long before I corrected it and it crushed it quite a bit and it is all over everything in the tank. How bad is this.

It has attached to almost everything like paint. Powerheads dont blow it off and I did take out some rock and too a brush to it. But when I put it back in 1-2 days it was covered again.

Not sure what is going on.

I am working on pics but in the mean time does anyone have any thoughts

 

Here are the pictures. Camera phone is all i got right now...

There used to be a bunch of Algae but just on the rocks. When the GFO gotinto the tank then everything else started to get nasty.

The sand is fine. Paramters are all within tolerance

I change 50% water once a week

It just weird

 

That isn't GFO, that is algae.

What are your paramters? Age of tank? How long are the lights on for? How much do you feed?

 

GFO does not leach, you may be grinding it to dust but iron oxide media does not leach the chemicals it adsorbs back in to the water. Two different issues here.

 

2nd the algae and a fine case of it. Params will help people get you straightened out. Do you use RO water or tap?

 

Looks like cyano bacteria or dinos.

 

I agree, that is not GFO leaching.

This is what GFO leaching looks like

that is just from very light tumbling of the media.

I stopped getting GFO colored skimmate after I switched to a different brand. No other change in the setup, so I am absolutely sure it is the GFO for this particular vendor.

 

Yup u got algae.....gfo generally will slowly be ground down to a powder and taken out of the water by mechanical filtration.doughboy wat brand was that from?

 

Yup I have been grinding up the GFO accidently and now that it is a powder it is all over the place. I put in a Skimmer and it looks just like that.

Now granted this is not a desired condition but do I have to be worried what this could do to the inhabitants?

I am using Phosban and I have since restricted the flow thru it. The skimmer is getting some out but every day I have to clean out the cup, I get at least a cup a day running it wet.

The Algae is a mix of macro and some hair algae (the reason I have the GFO in teh first place)

I top off in the middle of the week with RO and every two weeks I do a 50% water change but this freaking algae will not go away.

My parameters are good when I test them but with 50% water changes every 1.5 - 2 weeks it diffcult to say if my readings are good.

This is a small 15Gallon tank for Seahorses which is why I change the water so much so often. They are not a "clean" fish to keep.
They are doing great though...

I was thinking about getting some mangroves and more Macro Algaes into the tank to possibly combat for resorces against the hair algae..
What do you think.

My filtration is a AC110 mod to fit a AF115 skimmer
I have a Maxjet1200 with a Bio Sponge powering my chiller and GFO. I clean the sponge out every couple days so it does not become a nitrate factory

 

Do you siphon out any GFO dust you see when doing water changes? Get the dust out of the system ASAP.