"Foz Down" by oceanfreshaquarium.com

[Delphinus]

I recently wanted to try a new product I had heard about, called "Foz Down" by OceanFreshAquarium.com, a Canadian company.

I wanted to learn a little more about this company so I went to the website and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it is a subsidiary of Seacare, an enterprise run by Tim Tessier. While I doubt Tim remembers me, Tim and I have conversed a few times over the years especially in the 90's when seacare.org was THE go-to vendor for Tridacnid clams in Canada. That was a long time ago though, over time the business switched to a wholesale operation only, and us mere mortals could no longer buy from him except vicariously through other retailers.

Anyhow the idea behind Foz Down is that it is meant to bind with phosphate molecules, and somehow render them inert and able to be skimmed or filtered out thereafter. I'm not sure how this works, the ingredients are listed as "a blend of rare earth minerals", but, after trying it tonight on two tanks, I can verify it does seem to work as advertised.

Using a Hanna handheld phosphate meter which reads in ppb (parts per billion), I measured my FOWLR tank tonight at 25ppb (or approximately 0.03ppm). I added 8 drops (to lower the phosphate reading by 0.02, the instructions call for one drop per 10g of tank volume; I accounted for total tank and sump volume in this case, approximately 75g-80g). After one hour I retested the phosphate and got a zero reading. Being the skeptic I retested the sample 3 times and each time got a solid zero reading.

On my larger tank (approximately 300g of water volume), I had a before reading of 45ppb which was followed by a 20ppb reading after one hour. So this too seems consistent with a 0.02 drop.

I am pleasantly surprised to see such measurable results right away.