Despite
our best efforts most reef tank still resemble lagoonal locations,
and even then with too high a nutrient concentration. This
is especially true if the reef tank contains fish. The main
concern for a successful reef tank is to balance consumers
with producers, but doing so is difficult. Fish produce waste
while algae, for example, consume waste. Most of us who have
been reef keepers for a while know this, but maintaining over
a long period of time the pristine conditions of a natural
coral garden make great demands on the coral gardener. As
a result, most of us wind up with a eutrophic lagoon.
One of the nutrients
that is hardest to control is phosphate, which exists as inorganic
phosphate (PO4), which is difficult to read at
low levels, and organic phosphate, which is still more difficult
to measure for the average advanced reef keeper. Yet, it is
phosphate that is the primary contributor to the eutrophic
conditions that a reef keeper who wants to simulate the pristine
conditions of the outer reef in Nature needs to maintain at
concentrations significantly below 0.1-mg/L.
There is a new
product coming on to the market that has a number of respected
reef keepers like Greg Schiemer and Mike Paletta excited.
I'm using the product myself, and speaking anecdotally the
stuff seems to work. I'm referring to ROWAphos. This product
was developed in Germany, and I believe is manufactured in
Germany. It works best when used in a reverse flow reactor,
not passively put in a nylon bag and laid at the bottom of
the tank or sump. Check out these internet addresses of two
of our major sponsors, both of whom are now carrying ROWAphos:
However, we often
get excited by new products, and so much so that sometimes
we allow our imaginations to see more than what exists in
reality. Therefore, I asked Richard Harker to do a factual
analysis of the product, to see if nonbiased instruments reveal
what some of us have anecdotally observed in our reef tanks.
His product review of ROWAphos should be available next issue.
Since
the edition of ROWAphos in my reef tank this Pocillopora
verucosa, as evidenced by its pink growth tips,
has grown considerably. It is possibly Pocillopora
meandrina. It's hard to tell without a skeleton
examination.
