24 hour light on a caulerpa tank. Perdiodically harvest the caulerpa. Caulerpa grows very fast with good light and fertilizer (nitrates and phosphates). I've only tested my phosphates a couple of times. they have always been 0 or just barely detectable with the test kits (less than 0.1)

If you need some, I'm about ready to pull out 10 pounds or so.

Oops, I also forgot to mention Sea Gel by Seachem. It is a combination carbon and phosphate remover. I have a HOT magnum on my frag tank. I change the SeaGel every time I do a water change. Weekly to every other week max.

Yes, i'd love some caulerpa please .. the more the merrier .... Thank You.

Call me in the morning. Are we still on? If not, I still need to come your way and can drop some caulerpa off. Most likely, mid afternoon. I've got to finish hooking up my 40 gallon frag tank. I will now have one SPS frag tank and one mixed live rock softie frag tank.

Jeff I would love some caulerpa from you please

No, we'll do it another day - maybe next saturday, maybe during the week.

Yes, if you could drop some by - that would be much appreciated. I'll take whatever you're willing to get rid off .. if you want, chris said he'd stop by tomorrow .. just bring his here & he can take it ... or i can bag him some of it.

BUMP! anybody else ... how do you control your phosphates ?

I am running seagel in my phos ban reactor. "Premium activated carbon PLUS phosphate remover". I fill it up about half way and change it out every month. I also run a refugium so that helps too. Chaeto grows like crazy from a golf ball size piece to a softball size in about 1-2 months.
Bill

I got a few pounds of rowaphos for cheap so I'm using that, just in a bag no reactor or anything, but seems to be working pretty well.

i've heard red mangroves work and there's plenty of them around here, might be worth a try..

My tank is only 5 months old, and my phosphates are low. I originally set up the tank with tap water, and used one of the phosphate absorbing products contained in packets to treat the tap water in case it had phosphates, and kept the packets in the filter for the first few months. I had some borderline (around .1 ppm)phosphate readings initially after adding the live rock, live sand and miracle mud in the refugium. Since that time the phosphates have lowered to being almost undetectable, seemingly much closer to zero than .1 ppm. This is the case, even after removing the phosphate removing products.

What I am doing is the following:

I have an oversized skimmer for my system
Now using only RO/DI water
Keeping up with water changes
Trying not to overfeed
Growing Chaeto and some Caulerpa in the refugium. I have been harvesting the Chaeto monthly.

Like I said, my tank is not fully matured yet, so my phosphate problems may still be ahead of me, but the fact that the levels dropped and now have stayed consistently low keep me hopeful that the methods are working.

Bill