I have always been pretty thorough when it comes to testing my water with API liquid products. My source water is always about 0-1 PPM in Phosphates but I have noticed that over time even with timely water changes and otherwise crystal clear water that my oldest 60 tank has a high almost off the chart Phosphate reading (dark blue/green 10 PPM). Although most people say its not a concern if there is no blooms, for me I would at least like to have my water reading somewhere on the scale. I have been doing alot of research on Phosphate removing products some as expensive as $10 a treatment for the average size aquarium and most only promising a 1.5 PPM drop. I also noticed that some of the expensive liquid Phos products say that their products works by binding phosphates together making them large enough to to be caught by the filter system which gets clogged with phosphates and has to be cleaned. This description sounded very familiar of a product I used before to clear up cloudy water when I first established my aquarium, called Crystal Clear by Aquarium Products ($3 treats 400 gal). Crystal Clear uses a soluble sticky plant extract that binds particles in the water allowing them to be filtered out, the only thing is I only used it once long ago and I never tested it for phosphate removal. So even though my water was already crystal but my Phosphate levels were reading 10+ PPM I decided to give it a try and poured in the 1 drop per gallon as recommended. About 6 hours later I noticed my aquarium looked even clearer then before, I mean super clear and decided to do the post Phosphate test early rather then 24 hours after the Crystal Clear treatment. I couldn’t believe the results as my Phosphate levels fell by more the 5 PPM and were now on the test scale reading 5 PPM, that is so cool I thought because I was just about ready to order a $18 product that only promised 1.5 PPM reduction lol. Anyway I checked my filter and sure enough the poly blanket layer was caked with brown heavy clay like substance that I tossed out and changed, then went out and bought 800 gallons worth of Crystal clear for $6 and plan to make it part of my regular treatments when Phos readings go off the scale.
