Thanks Russ. I have a couple of quick questions though. How do I raise the Calcium? As for the phosphates, I have a phosban reactor currently running with no media yet. LFS told me to put media in it as soon as I put livestock in it. That was my first test because I was a little intimidated at first, I guess I wanted to wait. Thanks for all your help
PS I will add more salt to get it up to par!
~James
James,
Your questions one at a time:
How do you raise the Calcium? I wish all the questions were this easy. I would recommend picking up the
ESV B-Ionic 2part solutions. These 2 parts are calcium and Alkalinity. They are normally dosed in conjunction with each other, but never at the same time and absolutely never dosed in the same general vicinity of each other. Most people will does those two parts as alkalinity in the morning and calcium at night. Makes the tank more stable doing it this way. Make sure you're testing before every single dose. The last thing you want to do is overdose causing you to overshoot your target # and have to start lowering the parameter you were just trying to raise ten minutes ago.
Phosban Reactor is perfect to run Phosban/Rowaphos or even a GFO. The key to success with a media reactor to run Phosban is to make sure your water flow through the phosban is SLOW. When you think you've got it slow, turn it down. Running 50-60 gph through the media is right on target. All you want the media to do is have the very top layer of phosban exhibit a very low, tiny 'rumble' effect. Nothing more.
I also like to run carbon in a Phosban Reactor (separate reactor though). Carbon will remove toxins in the water, yellowing in the water and improve the overall condition and appearance of the water in the tank. We use ESV carbon exclusively. After you've changed out your carbon, you'll see after about 2-3 hours, the water will have taken on a 'polished' appearance. Almost as if the fish are just floating in the air with no water in the tank. Please keep in mind this is just an analogy I'm offering you, but it is an analogy that many people in the hobby use. So it must have some merit.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to shoot me a PM or even call me if you'd like. My phone # is in my signature of every post on MR.
I'm really glad to see you doing your research and investigation before jumping in and spending oodles of money on a lot of wasted equipment.
Good luck,
Russ
