PO4X4 is one of the newer phosphate removers on the aquarium market which has the added bonus of being able to be regenerated and reused. Sometimes it can take a while for home reefers to notice the relative performance of such high grade granular ferric oxide (GFO) and phosphate removers such as ROWA and PO4X4. However, when you have a massive 10,000 liter reef tank with its own greenhouse and a separate pool house for the filtration and equipment, the phosphate removing abilities of a Kilo of brand A vs. a Kilo of Brand B becomes a lot more apparent in the chemistry of the water and in the replacement cost.
Case in point is the wonderful New-York-apartment-sized 2,500 gallon aquarium called ‘John & Cam’s Bali reef’ which we have had the sincere pleasure of visiting. John & Cam’s reef aquarium has exhibited phenomenal growth of corals in the less than two years since visiting this truck sized reef tank in the UK. With such a heavy load of reef fish in this aquarium, a pound of food goes into the tank everyday and controlling phosphate has always been a key factor in the success of an aquarium with a serious fish population.
After using some of the best GFOs on the market, John & Cam testify to the effectiveness of using PO4X4 for removing phosphate from their reef tank, even before getting into the financial incentive of using this regenerable GFO media. On the popular UK reef aquarium bulletin board Ultimate Reefs, John and Cam give their thumbs up for how well PO4X4 has performed for them so far:
Before i left to go to the philippines on 01/01/2012, we changed the phosphate remover we use. We have always used enormous amounts i.e. 6-8 Ltrs at a time and changed it regularly, with PO4x4 we only used 3 Ltrs on our 10,000+Ltr system!! WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! We could only consistantly get our phosphate to 0.03 and it flirted at 0.015 when we freshly changed the media. Since my holiday the phosphate has dropped to between 0.003 and 0.008 and seems to be holding nicely. The media doesn’t need rinsing and unlike some of the others wev’e tried it doesn’t grind up even with serious flow going through it. All in all an excellent product we would definitely recommend.
