OB-GFO: why larger granules make a difference
A common theme in our reefing content will be how our experience as service technicians and store operators means that we see products in the wild yada yada real human use cases I’m tired of explaining it already.
However, this experience is incredibly useful when it comes to understanding how hobbyists use GFO.
GFO is the safest guaranteed effective phosphate reduction strategy available to reefers. Yet for most hobbyists the frustrations associated with using it means it either doesn’t get used or gets used in a way where they don’t see the benefits.
If you go on humblefishforum.com and read tank blogs it may seem like every hobbyists has GFO usage and reactors dialed in. However down on the ground in the trenches we see what most of you are doing. It’s not great.
But honestly, that says less about you and more about the types of GFO we have been offered.
Almost every traditional OW-GFO is the same: small, dusty, iron rich sand sized grains that stain your hands and anything that touches it.
Forcing you to use cumbersome GFO reactors, often failure prone devices that increase the complexity of your reefing husbandry and take up otherwise useful space in your sump.
Why Reef Keepers Use GFO
Even beginner reef keepers know that keeping phosphates low is crucial.
If you’re an advanced reef keeper you know how necessary it can be to keep phosphates dialed in a very small range, resisting swings towards too low or too high.
Reefers typically employ a variety of methods together to keep phosphates where they want them.
- Limiting or increasing food input
- Directly dosing liquid phosphate
- Lanthanum chloride (Extremely Dangerous)
- GFO
- Manipulating husbandry for how frequently filters are cleaned
- Refugiums
- Bioavailable hydrocarbons
Because fish and corals need food and modern systems are often plagued by too low of nitrates, most aquarists turn to GFO as the primary phosphate export solution.
About 50% of our service customers have GFO replaced on a regular basis, and among hobbyists that bring water samples to our shop a similar proportion have chronically high phosphates that they use GFO to manage.
However, many hobbyists will attempt to add refugiums, algae turf scrubbers, carbon dosing, or lanthanum chloride to no or disastrous avail simply because regular GFO is such a headache.
The Problem with Standard GFO
Standard GFO works well, but it is dusty and requires a specialized media reactor.
We used regular GFO in very fine mesh media bags for years, and while they would work, they were incredibly inefficient.
Our understanding was that the pore water circulation was not high enough to adequately utilize the media and that we were wasting about a third to half of what we put into the bags.
This translated to higher costs to customers and more work for us.
Adequately rinsing a large GFO media bag is a nightmare as well. Takes 5-10 gallons and several minutes to do well.
When we were able to sell customers onto reactors those presented a number of challenges as well.
Often times customers would prefer to get a cheaper unit. Many of the sub $100 reactors can be very difficult and messy to disassemble.
The wear pieces like rubber gaskets and tubes require cleaning and lubrication to prevent leaks and need replacing when, or preferably before they break.
If the reactor clogs or pump breaks not only does it stop removing phosphates until a person addresses the issue, if off for too long the GFO can turn into anoxic poison in a reactor leading to bad odor around the aquarium and potential environmental disease in the aquarium.
Over do the flow in a reactor and the GFO breaks abrades against itself into sharp magnetic fines that can find their homes damaging fish, corals, and magnetic impellers of pumps.
Despite the many potential drawbacks of traditional GFO, it is still probably the most widely used method of phosphate control.
How OB-GFO Is Different
While there are many companies selling GFO, there really isn’t a lot of differences from brand to brand.
With the exception of some interesting but expensive polymer blends, it tends to boil down to high capacity or low capacity.
High capacity tending to be preferred for easier rinsing and less breaking down due to harder granules, but the granules are still small.
Far too small to be run effectively in a media bag and still running into the potential for caking.
OB-GFO Changes Everything
It delivers the same powerful phosphate-binding performance as the competition, but without the hassle and drawbacks.
The massive grain size of OB-GFO creates natural gaps between the granules that allow water to flow evenly through the media.
Simply drop OB-GFO into a standard mesh media and put anywhere in your filtration.
(We have one customer with a thin HOB filter that prefers to hang it in his display tank.)
It doesn’t matter where you put this GFO even if the section of the sump looks stagnant, poor water circulation is enough to render all of the media utilized.
By weight, OB-GFO binds phosphate just as aggressively as standard, fine-grained alternatives.
It targets and removes the exact chemical compounds that fuel nuisance algae, ensuring your corals stay vibrant and healthy.
Fine GFO is notoriously brittle so when it tumbles in a reactor it grinds down and releases a rusty dust that can irritate sensitive corals and fish as well as pose a hazard for magnetic impellars.
OB-GFO’s heavy-duty, large-grain structure resists grinding really well.
It is a hard rock, almost like gravel that rinses clean quickly and stays intact, keeping your phosphates low and your livestock safe.
The Story Behind OB-GFO
As a quick aside and speaking candidly, it did not take a lot of effort to source OB-GFO and its very surprising that other companies haven’t tried to fix this issue.
I would love to tell you that we chartered an expedition to a remote mountain range in Labrador and spent weeks braving brutal snow while sampling and rock hounding for this precious ore — but the reality is it took just a handful of phone calls and emails and we had several samples to play around with.
All we did was explain the issues the hobby was facing to a sales person and they recommended different types of products.
After some testing we settled on what is now OB-GFO.
We love this hobby, but we think this is a great example of how many people in the industry treat hobbyists.
There is a serious disconnect between product developers and 95% of who they are trying to sell the product to.
Not so quick aside over, there are some other reasons we are excited about OB-GFO.
Affordable Reef Keeping Matters
The primary impulse for sourcing GFO from non-standard avenues for a storefront was the rising cost.
GFO is significantly more expensive than it used to be.
And while it is still the most cost-effective safe way of reigning in phosphates, that added cost is hard to swallow for many right now.
For the same reason that we started making bulk calcium, alk, and magnesium supplements where people can bring in their used jugs and refill for just $10 a jug, we started looking for less expensive sources of GFO that would be as effective to help people stay in the hobby.
You can imagine our surprise when the objectively better product is also unquestionably cheaper.
When most companies are selling GFO for $30/lb or more, we are able to sell these 2.5lb bags for $50 with a $40 introductory price while it’s new!
Simple Packaging, Better Value
Part of our mission to keep prices low for consumers, and also use less plastic involves our less than stellar packaging.
But hear me out, do you really want to pay $15 more for a fancy label and heavy duty plastic packaging?
You can purchase a rice storage container, or simply reuse some heavier duty plastic container to store the OB-GFO yourself.
If you really think about it, it’s objectively better — right?
Why We’re Proud of OB-GFO
OB-GFO is one of our flagship products.
We are incredibly proud of VerMedic and OB-GFO (and more so, some other things coming out of the Walter White lab) but we will always be transparent with you, attempting to keep margins fair and costs low.
If you like any of our products, please leave us a review to help us compete with the bigger e-tailers that will happily sell you 10 different brands repackaging of the same objectively worse GFO.
