gfo and clams

lunacris

lunacris

Active member
so after doing a little research ive been reading that clams and brown or red gfo dont mix anyone have experience. please chime in
 
lunacris said:
so after doing a little research ive been reading that clams and brown or red gfo dont mix anyone have experience. please chime in
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i use gfo and have to clams and two flame scallopes no problems . never heard of that. maybe if u have to much tumble or use too much. my gfo is brownish red
 
I've been using GFO since I started with saltwater tanks and always had clams. Never lost one yet. I have one big maxima that is with me for two years and it is growing and doing great. I use BRS high capacity GFO ,very low tumble in reactor.
 
Hmm this seems to be what im reading some say all good some say thats what did it all my levels are good with couple fish so i turned it off for now ill try to maintain the water quality with wc only and go from there thanks eric lots of reading but so far all good info thanks
 
So nitrates and phosphates dont really have the negative effect as i thought ... and been told . Good read off to find some more goodies to read up on now any more poi
 
poidog said:
You are right. It's been discusse on there before if you search. I think the latest was with EricTheRed.

GFO can cause pinched mantle in clams. It's advised not to run GFO while housing clams. And I wouldnt risk those clams you got ;)

Lots of reading
http://www.google.com/search?q=pinched+mantle+gfo&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
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Yep, I had pinched mantle and had to fresh water dip my clams several times and I took my GFO offline for a while until they got better. However, what i believe was happening is that I had my GFO tumbling too aggressively and it was causing fines to get into the water which irritated the clams. I have since gone back to GFO but barely let any water flow through the reactor. My phosphates were at 0.1 and went back down to 0.01 even with the super slow flow. Also, it is hugely important to rinse out the new gfo until ALL the fines are removed and the cleansed water runs crystal clear. this can take 5+ minutes so I take my reactor to the kitchen sink and run fresh water through it so I'm not wasting several gallons of tank water to flush out the fines. Seems to be working fine...the clams are the happiest they have ever been.
 
EricTheRed said:
Yep, I had pinched mantle and had to fresh water dip my clams several times and I took my GFO offline for a while until they got better. However, what i believe was happening is that I had my GFO tumbling too aggressively and it was causing fines to get into the water which irritated the clams. I have since gone back to GFO but barely let any water flow through the reactor. My phosphates were at 0.1 and went back down to 0.01 even with the super slow flow. Also, it is hugely important to rinse out the new gfo until ALL the fines are removed and the cleansed water runs crystal clear. this can take 5+ minutes so I take my reactor to the kitchen sink and run fresh water through it so I'm not wasting several gallons of tank water to flush out the fines. Seems to be working fine...the clams are the happiest they have ever been.
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The only problem with this is that you are using up some of the gfos ability to absorb phosphates since your sink water has phosphates in it. Or at least that's what I heard
 
roilciuc said:
The only problem with this is that you are using up some of the gfos ability to absorb phosphates since your sink water has phosphates in it. Or at least that's what I heard
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This may be true but I have always rinsed my GFO and carbon right off the tap and haven't noticed a negative to do so, I always wait too long to change it out anyways so I couldn't tell you if it effects life of the media. I just don't see a benefit to wasting good water or using old tank water to rinse the new media.
 
FishBeard said:
This may be true but I have always rinsed my GFO and carbon right off the tap and haven't noticed a negative to do so, I always wait too long to change it out anyways so I couldn't tell you if it effects life of the media. I just don't see a benefit to wasting good water or using old tank water to rinse the new media.
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Yeah, it doesn't make sense to waste RO/DI water to rince GFO or Carbon. It takes forever to get the water to run clear and I'd run out of RO/DI doing that.
 
Yeah, tap won't affect the longevity of either carbon or GFO too much. Especially since we stop as soon as the dust washes away.
 
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