Seachem PhosGuard 250ml

This will be an updated review as I just got the product last night. I have a 20 gallon tank and have been frustrated with how quickly algae seems to be growing on my 'fake' plants in the tank.. I have an algae eater but he can't get all the leaves due to their shape and size. Having phosphate test kit for the pool I decided to check the fish tank. The high mark is dark blue. I've never seen the test water such a dark blue color and I have problems with the pool in the summer due to trees overhead and the Florida climate. My fish tank water had even more phosphates than the pool ever had. So I bought this product after seeing a video on its use. I have an AquaClear 30 filter which uses the foam, purigen, biomedia stages. I took out the biomedia bag and put it beneath the intake and replaced it with the same sized bag filled with PhosGuard. It was roughly half the 250ml container I purchased here. I put it in last night around 6pm (after rinsing it well as directed) and left it. I tested the water today around 3pm and the test water was almost clear, indicating little to no phosphates in the water. It was still a little blue but nowhere near the dark blue prior to using the product. They say to wait 4 days to test the water. I'm thinking by tomorrow the test water will be clear, indicating no phosphates. I expected this result from the reviews I've read and the video I saw, but what surprised me the most was that the algae is disappearing! There are only patches of it left on the leaves and a big patch on my 3 inch round/flat bubbler. I should have taken a before picture of the algae but take my word for it. Just like the guy in the video, I had the result the following day of dying algae. It simply doesn't have anything to eat to stay alive.. and we keep the tank light on probably longer than recommended also. I'll report back in a few days on the final results but so far it's working beautifully. I was expecting to have to take all the plants out of the tank for the typical bleach soak. (i'm careful to soak them in prime or safe to neutralize any bleach before re-using). I never expected the algae to just die off. So far i'm impressed. Also I'm convinced now for this coming pool season about using PhosFree in our sand filter to control Phosphates in the pool. But that's another review.Updates to come.

I have 29 gallon tank, with 7 or so Amazon Sword plants, gravel substrate and tap water (with Prime conditioner to remove Chlorine). The tank is not over stocked. There is about 20 inches of total fish in there between some mollies, guppies and platies.After cleaning the walls and substrate, every 4th day or so brown algae was visible all over the tank.I read online and a slew of things came up for the cause of brown algae -1. New Aquarium - My Aquarium has been fully cycled for a few months so I skipped this.2. High Nitrates - I measured this and it was constantly around 20-30 and I would like to keep it that way for plants. I know changing water is important but I would like to do it every 2-4 weeks and not ever 4th day which is crazy! It wasn't around 80-100 nitrates so I didn't want to do anything here.3. High Light - My light is only on 6-7 hours a day and that is needed for plants so I didn't want to change anything there.4. High Silicates - I didn't have a Silicate test kit and didn't want to buy one. Neither did I want to change to RO or store bought water. I don't have sand substrate which some sites claimed to be the cause of silicates. So, with process of elimination I decided to get this to remove Silicates from the water as opposed to buying a Algae killer product which may be temporary or have more side effects.Cleaned the walls and vacuumed substrate for one more time, put 3-4 teaspoons in my filter bag and it has been 8 days and no sign of Algae. Fish and Plants have not been affected in any way and are happy!I am thinking once the silicates are removed, I don't have to put more of this in my filter. I can run a 5 gallon bucket of tap water through this 4-5 times during my water change every 3 weeks before refilling my tank. We will see if that works.

Great Product

I have a a few freshwater aquariums. One day, I decided to change my substrate in a 55gal aquarium to sand (big mistake). But also, I decided to mix my RO water with tap water. It created the perfect parameters (so I thought), but I didn’t realize the silicates were off the charts in the tap water.It was too late as the brown hair algae/diatoms took over my tank at a very fast rate. It covered everything and smothered a lot of my plants that eventually died. I battled this for many months before I tried phosguard. Phosphates were never my issue but I read it would remove silicates as well and reviews were mixed on that. I put it in a mesh bag and threw it in my canister filter in the biomedia stage. It took a few days, but the silicates test was going down. The bummer thing about it is that you need to keep replacing it about every 3 days until it’s gone. I think I did about 5-6 rounds of phosguard and a 50% water change weekly before the silicates was finally gone and the diatoms slowly went away. Glad to have that over and I definitely recommend trying it if you’re having the same issues.

The best product on the market to combat phosphate issues in your reef tanks, bar none!

I've used this product before and it's awesome if you have a green water problem. My turtle is, shell length approx 12 inches right now and still growing. She is in a waterland turtle tub, very large and the water level is kept at about 8 inches. I got an algae bloom in there and it was so green I couldn't even seen her! I placed some in the filter and made a filter out of a butter container. The water is so clear the it's actually strange looking at it. I can see my Turtle now, and see looks really happy. It works by removing the phosphates from the water that the algae feeds on. The price is wonderful, it's twice if not 3 times as much at my local store. A little goes a long way too. So if you have a turtle that lives in water and start having a green water problem by all means put a mesh bag of this stuff in the filter. Amazon sent this to me quicker than I could ever imagine. My turtle (Sami) and I thank you!