Hi from Boise Idaho

[Mwells]

Me and my husband are new to saltwater tanks my question is how do we clean the over flow boxes

[obscurereef]

Welcome to AA! Umm..with a sponge or a dryer lint trap brush or baby bottle brush? Hard to say as it's not really something to clean I guess...Why would you want to clean it? Just curious about some details about your tank...size, stock, corals or FOWLR if you don't mind me asking?

[Mwells]

I have a 120 gallon tank with a 30 gallon sump tank and its a fowler

[obscurereef]

Cool! What fish do you have?

[Mwells]

I have a hippo tang a blue jaw trigger 2 domino damsels a coral beauty a gramma damsel a fuji blue damsel a brittle starfish 3 clown 3 urchins a peppermint shrimp 2 cleaner shrimp 1 open green brain 1 candy cane toadstool leather a T maxima a crocea clam some polyps and green hairy mushroom rock and some hermit crabs and some snails

[Mwells]

The one reason we would like too clean the over flow is because we have done several water changes and are nitrates and ammonia is high and we were just thinking that if we were too clean the over flow boxes it might help bring them down

[obscurereef]

Wow a very aggressive tank. I believe that's a reef tank, not a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) as you have inverts and corals. The trigger doesn't pick at your inverts? Seems like it would be a nice variety

[Mwells]

No he doesn't bother them at all

[Mwells]

Just too let you no I did put pics on my profile not saying there very good but at least you can see them

[obscurereef]

Blue tang is gorgeous and I see the cleaner shrimp in the back. You can post pics on the replys in case you didn't know...Thanks for showing us.

[Mwells]

Thanks I so have a question for you like I said my nitrates are high and my phosphstes are high besides changing water what I else can we do too get them down

[obscurereef]

For nitrates you can add a refugium (HOB or incorporate it in a sump if you have one...or make a DIY or buy one if you want) and put chaeto macroalgae in it. For phosphates you can get a phosban reactor w/ GFO media. At fostersmithaquatics.com they have a sale (ending tomorrow) on it.

[Mwells]

Thank you I will look into that but my husband would like to do things naturally with out chemicals sense he seems too thing they just mask over the problem

[obscurereef]

They do... but carbon is a chemical element...do you not use that for filtration and removal of color and toxins? GFO bonds phosphates so that it reduces it. There are good chemicals and bad ones, and I don't believe there are any cons about GFO.

[Mwells]

Ok thank you

[Mwells]

Sorry for bothering you but can u please tell me what GFO stands for

[SaltwaterNuB]

Granulated Ferric Oxide