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- Jul 16, 2009
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I am the same - nothing has changed in the way water chemistry worksWondered if you were the same animal as the critter on RCentral. Been a while since you were actively posting.
Science and Tech of reefs has exploded in the past few years, particularly during COVID but much has changed especially in experimental science tracking tank inputs/outputs.
Stuff that was written in stone a decade ago has since been discovered to actually have been written on Sandstone.
In terms of PO4, if you have water column levels of .03, if it is stable for a week, it will be at equilibrium with the level stored in the carbonate reservoirs such as rocks and substrate, which is why the simple statement that you can simply perform a water change to lower the level is more like to be false than true.
The answer to the OP's post is simply to use GFO, and over time, which may be a while, the levels will decline.
I think we all agree on that
You are correct about carbonate reservoirs and equilibrium. That is no being contested (and is part of the point being made). Each system will have (vastly) different levels of storage capacity.
My initial comments were to juxtapose/contextualize that very fact to "water changes do not remove phosphate" or however it was presented.
Let me also put something else out there. I did not leave the hobby, stop learning or get too old to understand "new things". I simply got tired of dealing with debates like this... so stopped posting and went on with the hobby and other things in life.