Running GFO with VSV

[ibnozn]

Hi All,

I've been dosing VSV for a few months now and haven't hit zero po4. According to Salifert my nitrates have gone but my Hanna checker still reads .07ppm po4. I have a couple of sand beds in my system, both in the display and seagrass fuge that may have phosphates bound up in them. My skimmate is no longer that nasty stuff but I've also stopped MB7 dosing which may be why. My cyano is gone but I can't seem to shake the hair algae. I'd like to run GFO as I manually remove the hair algae to keep it from coming back.

I have a total system volume of around 100gals; which includes a 35 gal. hex w/dsb, a 40 gal. bare bottom SPS frag tank, a 15 gal. seagrass fuge and the sump. My daily VSV dose started at .5 ml and I'm now at 5.8 ml per day.

I understand that I shouldn't try to remove all the phosphate from the water column while I dose VSV. If I started running RowaPhos at half the recommended dose for my system, to bring my phosphates down further, what should be done with the VSV dosing? Keep going up? Cut it in half to a maintenance dose while I run GFO? Or stop VSV completely while running GFO?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Sasquatch]

running gfo while dosing is a little counter productive, you need both n+p for the bacteria to work, DSB's do present a potential for problems as there can be a sporadic release of n+p caused by varying factors (may explain the bounce your having?) I would cautiously continue the dosing, stop the gfo,apply patience and allow the dsb's to purge on their own schedule, do you run activated carbon?