Review: Seachem Phosguard

[KaLiB]

Got a bottle of these recently to help battle my phosphate problem. I won't bore you with the technical details like dosage. Here's a link to the product itself. I'll focus on the results of using this product.

Here's a pic of the chemical media to begin with:


According to the package, the media should be replaced after 4days if phosphate does not drop to 0.02mg/l. This bottle has a volume of 250ml. 250ml treats 300litres-400litres, so based on my tank volume, i added around 1/6 of the contents into a filter bag. Filter bag is placed in my redsea prizm skimmer.

Day1:
2 tests were done today, at 2:30pm when the media was first added and about 6hours later at 8:45pm.
Results of test at 2:30pm, phosphates at around 1ppm:

Results of test at 8:45pm, not much change:


Day2:
2nd day of usage, did a test at 2:30pm when i got home. Don't think would do a 2nd test today, would do a test 24hrs later. Will update this tomorrow after the test.
Results of test at 2:30pm, phosphates appeared to be between 0.5ppm and 1ppm:


Day3:
Did the test a little earlier at 2:15pm. Phosphates has dropped to around 0.5ppm. The drop in phosphate levels is smaller as compared to the drop from Day1 to Day2. This could be due to the media beginning to show signs of exhaustion. I am supposed to replace this tomorrow(Day4) if phosphate don't drop to 0.02ppm.

Would do a test tomorrow at around the same time before i replace the media with fresh media.

Results of test at 2:15pm, phosphates at around 0.5ppm:


Day4:
Did the test at 2:45pm. The media has already exhausted as there is no noticeable drop in phosphate levels from Day3 till now. Phosphate remains at about 0.5ppm. Looks like the media should be replaced by the 3rd day if phosphates still high instead of the 4days recommended on the bottle if phospahtes cannot reach 0.02ppm by Day4.

Replaced the media with fresh media of similar quantity at around 3pm, would update again tomorrow. No signs of clumping detected when old media was replaced.

Results of test at 2:45pm, phosphates at around 0.5ppm:


Day5:
Today is the 1st day after replacing media on Day4. Did the test at 3pm. Phosphates have dropped to between 0.25ppm and 0.5ppm. I would do another update either tomorrow or the following day. I believe the pattern would be similar to the previous 4days.

Results of test at 3pm, phosphates between 0.25ppm and 0.5ppm:

[KaLiB]

Day7:
Today is the 3rd day after replacing the media. Did the test at 4pm. Phosphates seems to be slightly above 0.25ppm, though it appears to be almost the same as the results on Day5. Appears as though the media is less effective with dealing phosphates at lower levels.
Results of test at 4pm, phosphates slightly above 0.25ppm:


Day8:
Today is exactly 1week since the day i started using Seachem phosguard. Test was done at 9pm. Phosphates appear to have dropped a little to around 0.25ppm. Since this is the 4th day after the change of media, the bag of media would be changed again. I would update this again in 2days time.

Results of test at 9pm, phosphates around 0.25ppm:


Day11:
Didn't update yesterday, so did the test today at 6pm. Today is the 3rd day after changing the media, slight drop in phosphates only. It appears to be between 0.1ppm to 0.25ppm, though leaning towards 0.1ppm. This would be the last time i'll update this thread.

Overall, this product does not appear to be effective in reducing low(0.25ppm and below) phosphate levels further as seen from the test results.

Resutls of test at 6pm, phosphates between 0.1ppm to 0.25ppm:

phosguard is aluminum base so it get exhaust much faster. Furthermore, it is not as effective as Iron base.

[KaLiB]

Thanks for the info, didn't know phosguard is alumnium base.

After finishing this bottle, i'll be switching to another brand. Would update this thread again tomorrow with the test result for tomorrow.

In your first test; did those beads turn from white too light brown/yellow?

[KaLiB]

Oops, forgot to mention. Yup, they changed colour from white to light brown.