Beware of Seachem Phosguard

So I have a relatively heavily planted 55 gallon tank. I manage to squeze in 40% daily WC, however, recently I noticed that my phosphates went through the roof. Instead of upping my WC schedule like a reasonable person, I went and purchased Seachem Phosguard. I rinse the product thoroughly, place it in my filter, and POOF a white cloud envelops my aquarium. Discus gasping for air, I go into emergency mode. I remove my fish into a small bucket and proceed to do a 100% water change- 45 minutes before a business meeting- manually... after all’s said and done, the fish are fine, and tank is back to normal. I was late for my meeting but all in all, catastrophe averted.

Just wanted to put it out there, I don’t know what’s up with this product or if I got a bad batch, but be aware!

Dylan

Thanks for sharing your bitter experience with us Dylan .
I can relate to the stress you went through sweating to straight things up while getting late for work at the same time .
I would definitely address this issue to seachem support center if I were in your shoes. Maybe they can share some logical explanation for this havoc their product has caused you . At least they were always helpfull to me when I asked them questions about their products.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Filip

Thanks for sharing your bitter experience with us Dylan .
I can relate to the stress you went through sweating to straight things up while getting late for work at the same time .
I would definitely address this issue to seachem support center if I were in your shoes. Maybe they can share some logical explanation for this havoc their product has caused you . At least they were always helpfull to me when I asked them questions about their products.

---

I definitely will contact them just to get a more in-depth exploration of the cause. All of this happened the day before I was supposed to get a shipment of new fish as well.

I've used it for years and have never had that happen. They ask you to rinse it because when it first gets wet it creates heat. In a closed plastic filter it could (unlikely) get hot enough to warp/melt things. While i have felt the heat from it rinsing in cold water i never felt it was hot enough to damage anything then again I'm only using about 2 cups so i guess if you were to use a lot it very well could get hot enough to damage something. I'd call and ask questions like i stated I've used it for years maybe 15 to be honest. I use mine in an Rena XP3 in a bag

Shot them a message, no response as of yet.