Algae filter?
- Thread starter eon aquatics
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A refugium is when we use plants in our filter. While algae is not technically a plant, it could be used in the place of "plant" in a refugium.
Salt Water people tend to use far more complex filtration. I often go to their forums or How To's to get ideas. Though not all things translate equally. I believe they call what you are describing an Algae Scrubber.
Salt Water people tend to use far more complex filtration. I often go to their forums or How To's to get ideas. Though not all things translate equally. I believe they call what you are describing an Algae Scrubber.
You can check out the next thread down from this one... https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/freshwater-sump-refugium.763850/
I'm in the process of building a Sump that utilizes a refugium. I'll be using plants such as Pathos, Java Fern and HornWart. I won't be consciously targeting algae, but I expect it to be there.
Another poster, Triamond, is adding a lot of interesting details about nitrate consumption by plants. Google says algae eats nitrates faster than plants. Since both have the same basic needs, I'm very interested to see what comes of this thread too. I started the thread linked above. Feel free to derail that thread asking your own questions about algae as opposed to plants.
There's also a lot of information available out there already. With just a couple basic searches I saw several interesting pages/articles.
I'm in the process of building a Sump that utilizes a refugium. I'll be using plants such as Pathos, Java Fern and HornWart. I won't be consciously targeting algae, but I expect it to be there.
Another poster, Triamond, is adding a lot of interesting details about nitrate consumption by plants. Google says algae eats nitrates faster than plants. Since both have the same basic needs, I'm very interested to see what comes of this thread too. I started the thread linked above. Feel free to derail that thread asking your own questions about algae as opposed to plants.
There's also a lot of information available out there already. With just a couple basic searches I saw several interesting pages/articles.
As
Toby_H
said, marine/reef keepers typically use algae filtration for nutrient export. DIY can be something like this where water sheet flows over a screen that is brightly lit by an appropriate color temperature lamp.
Algae is periodically harvested
Then there are high-end versions of algae reactors like this
Harvesting the algae
Toby_H
said, marine/reef keepers typically use algae filtration for nutrient export. DIY can be something like this where water sheet flows over a screen that is brightly lit by an appropriate color temperature lamp. Algae is periodically harvested
Then there are high-end versions of algae reactors like this
Harvesting the algae
In short, by itself no but as an addition to reduce nitrates and potentially prolonging the time between water changes yes. However, algae is not a unified tree of life and not all algae is beneficial. More specifically, algae scrubbers are effectively farms where you attempt to grow a specific strain of algae; typically some sort of hair algae within the chlorophyta division. There is a plethora of online forums and resources for you so I won't get into the details about how to set one up here but rather the pros and cons.
Pros:
- More time between water changes since most algae will suck up most excess nutrients including heavy metals such as copper.
- Great fertilizer for a garden or feed if you raise your own micro fauna (specifically "scuds"/amphipods)
- DIY can be very low cost for startup
- Scalable to any aquarium size
Cons:
- More electrical hardware to supply and maintain (lights) & potentially a separate pump depending on design.
- Scaling problem with space used vs cost efficiency
- Requires "harvesting" every 7-21 days
- Not a true replacement for mechanical filtration media
- The main problem is the flow & by the time algae is thick enough to capture solids you should be considering when to harvest.
- Realistically not a replacement for biological filtration media
- Could be a replacement but you would need a specialized room, not a container, dedicated to running angled lights & daily harvesting to maximize surface area for both beneficial bacteria (BB) and algae growth. Probably some sort of % split where you separate light to only some % of the bottom part of the media so the BB section won't have algae growth. This will also allow the water dripping down to carry nitrates directly to the algae population.
- Not worth the $$$ and effort for anything less than a large pool/pond or extremely overstocked tank.
- Would compete for surface area with BB
- Both BB and aglae are micro-organisms that, in theory, could actually live together in the same colony cluster but in the home aquarium our space is limited so typically it's better to maximize the amount of BB we can have compared to developing a self-contained ecosystem. Additionally, heterotrophic bacteria and other micro predators in our biological filters would eat any small amounts of algae that is present in the colonies unless you intentionally attempted to cultivate them -> a whole skew of new problems. In short, not worth trying to find balance in a single filter process.
- Extremely low chance to grow toxic algae species
My final suggestion is, depending on your stock, consider running a heavily planted tank instead of an algae scrubber similar to
duanes
set up.People tend to use chaeto in their refugium which actually is an algae, it just conveniently grows like a plant which makes it easy to trim.
You'd want something similar because otherwise if you stop removing algae, it won't be able to grow anymore and then won't absorb that many nutrients from the water.