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Phosphate removing stuff
I've long been plagued by algae. For a good while I just thought I
didn't quite have some lighting or fertilizer thing down. I bought
every other kind of testkit known to man, and got my iron looking
good, nitrates good, lighting good, but still I have algae.
I finally went out and bought a phosphate testkit. Now I know why I
have algae: my tapwater has >5ppm of the stuff.
[[ And no, there's really no mistaking that reading. One of my tanks
has low algae and fearsome plant growth -- 3 weeks after the last
water change, it has almost as little phosphate as a bottle of
distilled water I bought and tested. I changed the water in it,
now it has some phosphates. I filtered some tapwater through
PhosGuard and then tested that water, it came out fairly phosphate
free. I dropped KH2PO4 into the test-tube, it turned blue...
There's no problem with the testkit here. ]]
I understand that phosphate is injected in the tapwater to control pipe
corrosion in some places. Given that there have been 5 water main
breaks within 200 yards of my house in the past 5 years, I can't really
say I blame the city... But anyway.
How to get rid of the stuff is the issue. I could get a RO/DI filter,
but the RO unit isn't really worth much -- the water here is decent
aquarium water, except for the chloramines and phosphates.
One solution that comes to mind is to set up a holding tank and filter
that water through PhosGuard for a couple days before putting it into
the tanks.
What I'd like to know is the total-cost-of-ownership factors for the
competing schemes. PhosGuard isn't really cheap, and I wonder how long
the stuff would last against my tapwater. From what I understand, DI
filters work on a similar principal and need to be recharged from time
to time as well.
- Steve
------
Steve Benz (steveb at tall-tree_com) | Tall Tree Software Co.
http://www.tall-tree.com | Ph/Fax: 512-453-4909