orca bio cubes

wookie

wookie

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Guys some understanding here please i bought orca bio cubes today and the instruction say soak in tap water for 24 hours, is this correct surly one would use rowater or not ?
Should i also switch off my Phosphate reactor or not
Any advice would be great Tia
 
Ok the bio cubes are in the sump in their little bag with an air stone with my skimmer, running a week now, have been plucking as much algae off the rocks a possible and have noticed that some of it pulls off very easy and some is stubborn, so when will i know that this gha is dying off as mentioned in previous post no3 and po4 read zero.
 
if they read 0, GHA is getting its food source from the rocks
 
Ok @dallasg i get what u are saying i took some out and washed in water change water vigorously and nothing came off the rocks, i even bought new rock and within 2 days gha started on that, I'm also thinking of removing it all and putting in new rock and then try and cure that rock? Suggestions bud ?
 
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Hi there. I also had a massive GHA issue. The best advice I can give u is to just keep up your husbandry, let the tank be and be patient. The GHA will soon die off. It does take a while for it to happen but then it quickly dies off and then you will soon forget what GHA was.;)
 
Algae has been around for millions of years and it knows where to source its food, it can mine nutrients from the rock even in trace amounts, it will also consume out the water column before your test kits will see it

I had GHA and bryopsis and regular husbandry helps
 
Orca bio cubes running 3 weeks in my sump, have not noticed any real change , but plucking as much gha out as possible. Comes off in big clumps and clean rock is left behind. Should i add carbon to the Phosphates reactor , will carbon lower cal, mag, alk.
 
wookie said:
Orca bio cubes running 3 weeks in my sump, have not noticed any real change , but plucking as much gha out as possible. Comes off in big clumps and clean rock is left behind. Should i add carbon to the Phosphates reactor , will carbon lower cal, mag, alk.
Click to expand...

give it some time, no carbon will have no effect on them
 
When saying your PO4 is 0, what are you using to measure it?
 
My lfs tests for me and i been to 2 different lfs and both have the same results.
 
What are they testing with? This is important, as PO4 is very seldom expressed as a singular number, i.e. 0, but rather as 0.03 or better 0.015.
Chances are, they are using "hobby grade" kits, which really are a waste of money.
 
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How long have u been running what quantity of po4 remover and what brand?
System volume?
 
They use salfert test at the one lfs and the other is red sea. System vol is 320 litres i was running salfert phosguard changed on the weekend to antiphos Fe. 500grams .
Tank running a year now. I have noticed where my corals sit and they are fully open there is no gha, the rock is clean.
 
Possibly Confirms my suspicion. PO4 probably more of an issue than NO3. Good thing you changes out the GFO, will probably need another change in a few weeks.
Remember GFO does not only bind PO4, it also binds Si, and the initial "lack of success with using it is due to Si saturating the media.
As the Si pool is depleted, GFO can focus its energy on PO4 and unfortunately... Alk.
 
Si is what exactly. Yea the phosban was yellow when i removed it so chucked it.
 
So bio cubes running for over a month now with an air stone, what i would like to know is do i leave the air stone as It moves due to the bubbles to the top of the bag. Have to try get to the bottom all the time. If i remove air stone can i place them in my reactor or not. Where should i leave the cubes as they are in the same chamber as my skimmer.
 
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