Question: 

 

Can I use carbon dosing or products like NoPox and Rowaphos at the same time?

 

Answer: 

 

Yes you can use Rowaphos side by side with carbon dosing but you need to be mindful that you don’t pull down PO4 too much. The reason being is that bacterial respiration requires a small amount of PO4 , if you are pulling the PO4 down to or close to 0ppm it may become a limiting factor and adding a carbon source will do little to pull down your Nitrates.

We would suggest a PO4 level of between 0.024-0.04ppm , adjust the amount of Rowaphos you use to tune your PO4 . If you are close to 0 then reduce the amount of Rowaphos you use by 50% of our recommended amounts and leave longer periods between change out until you see PO4 start to peak at around 0.024-0.04ppm.

When carbon dosing we would also suggest running an effective skimmer to increase the dissolved oxygen content of the water, gas off CO2 and also pull out any nutrient laden dead bacterias.