So confused..ich or not??? Help

[kien]

Originally Posted by Coralgurl

I turned up my protein skimmer to help with my phosphates (0.25)

Protein skimmers do not remove phosphates nor is it their function to do so. Protein skimmers help to remove dissolved organics (fish poo, amino acids, etc). Protein skimmers will remove organic waste products that may contain phosphorus but phosphorus is not exactly phosphate. Technically, phosphorus is an element (P), and phosphate is a molecular anion (PO4_3-), part of phosphoric acid (H3PO4). Also, our aquarium test kits can only test for inorganic phosphates.

A better way to reduce phosphates is to run Granulated Ferric Oxide (GFO) in a media reactor. Mostly all local fish stores will sell some form of GFO (rowaPhos, etc).