If you’ve been wondering what ROWA Crystal could be made from since we posted about it a few weeks ago, then you’re not alone. At the time we supposed that ROWA Crystal was probably along the lines of Lanthanum Chloride, the primary ingredient in liquid additives which precipitate phosphate when added to aquarium water. We can now confirm that we guessed incorrectly and that the actual formulation of ROWA Crystal is a lot closer to home for the popular manufacturer of granular ferric oxide (GFO). If you take a look at the bottle on the right, that rusty, blood-colored liquid should be familiar to frequent users of ROWA media as the slurry from rinsing ROWA GFO looks exactly that color. In so many words the active phosphate remover in ROWA Crystal is finely ground ROWA media that has been reduced to particles only a few microns across; ROWA got micronized! The bottle on the left shows what happens to ROWA Crystal after it has been left sitting for a little while. Additionally, the solution in ROWA Crystal also includes some sort of flocculator which helps to bind ROWA particles into larger masses until they can be removed by the aquarium filtration or protein skimmer. We’re not sure how the flocculating agent is prevented from doing it’s thing inside the bottle but it’s a good possibility some whiz-bang aquatic chemistry will be hashing it out in the comments as soon as this story posts. We have confirmation that cases of ROWA Crystal have hit North America and the product should starting to hit New World aquarium stores this week and next.
