3 glass mirrors in the tank, Mylar on the front.
The led is submerged, it is maintenance free, as the bulbs are too bright, for algea to grow on. With Lights on the dry side, The glass gets fouled.
Algae scrubber as bio filter.
- Thread starter markstrimaran
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3 glass mirrors in the tank, Mylar on the front.
The led is submerged, it is maintenance free, as the bulbs are too bright, for algea to grow on. With Lights on the dry side, The glass gets fouled.
Got a water dump, in this morning. So the experimental tank is at 15ppm.
With 15 leds, but I am going to try and add 10 more,
With 15 leds, but I am going to try and add 10 more,
Ok, busy week.
Added 10 more watts, for 35 total actual watts, mostly 660nm. The balls are covered on 4 sides, so their no shade.
The side of the container are also well covered in algea.
I don' expect it to reduce nitrate, at all. Just to prevent ammonia from becoming nitrate.
But theirs going to be a few bacteria stragglers. If their was a way to kill them off. Without effecting algea, or ruining the water for human consumption, irrigation.
Added 10 more watts, for 35 total actual watts, mostly 660nm. The balls are covered on 4 sides, so their no shade.
The side of the container are also well covered in algea.
I don' expect it to reduce nitrate, at all. Just to prevent ammonia from becoming nitrate.
But theirs going to be a few bacteria stragglers. If their was a way to kill them off. Without effecting algea, or ruining the water for human consumption, irrigation.
I was wondering to what extent nitrifying bacteria were converting ammonia into nitrate in competition with the algae.
Do you believe the algae use nitrate if ammonia is limiting?
I have not had any success, with algea useing nitrates.
Nitrate reduction in algea, could occur, at night perhaps, as the algea uptakes, oxygen creating condition favorable for bacteria to convert nitate, back into ammonia.
I think their is some great potential for a algea reactor, before bio media, to reduce total nitrate creation per week.
Nitrate reduction in algea, could occur, at night perhaps, as the algea uptakes, oxygen creating condition favorable for bacteria to convert nitate, back into ammonia.
I think their is some great potential for a algea reactor, before bio media, to reduce total nitrate creation per week.
Nitrifying bacteria convert every 1 ppm ammonia into 3.64 ppm nitrate so you end up with a lot of nitrate from the ammonia. The algae use all of the ammonia so there's no resulting nitrate. I agree ... an algae reactor before standard biomedia should significantly reduce the overall nitrate level.
I am not advocating, less or zero water changes. Sometime I run out of time, to do full maintenance.
On my old set up, missing 3 weeks of water changes, would turn into a 40 ppm - 120 ppm red guess. Diluting with 10 ppm tap water, at fin level was futile.
My goal is to have my max nitrate peak round 30 ppm after an extended break from water changes, and have maybe a 5 ppm swing from 12 ppm to 17ppm with weekly 40% changes.
My heavily algea covered tank does just that. After 3 weeks of zero water changes, it will be less than 30ppm.
The log tank that I put the 15 led light in, creeps up into the 30ppm with regular changed, every 4 months. It is pushing 50 ppm after a long break from water changes. Filters changed when pluged
On my old set up, missing 3 weeks of water changes, would turn into a 40 ppm - 120 ppm red guess. Diluting with 10 ppm tap water, at fin level was futile.
My goal is to have my max nitrate peak round 30 ppm after an extended break from water changes, and have maybe a 5 ppm swing from 12 ppm to 17ppm with weekly 40% changes.
My heavily algea covered tank does just that. After 3 weeks of zero water changes, it will be less than 30ppm.
The log tank that I put the 15 led light in, creeps up into the 30ppm with regular changed, every 4 months. It is pushing 50 ppm after a long break from water changes. Filters changed when pluged
Good thread! I am planning on putting a UAS in my sump. I would think you'd want to put the algae scrubber after the biomedia, so the ammonia still gets converted to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate by the biomedia, that way if you have a power outage or the nanodriver for your LEDs fail, you still have a colony of BB that can handle the ammonia, cause it's more detrimental to fishes health than nitrate. Just thinking out loud, @SantaMonica could probably provide insight
I would maintain as much contact time as possible with, raw pre filtered water. Upstream of mechanical filtration, and biologically active media. In a segregated sump chamber.
If a power outage occurred, this would keep the oxygen up take " night cycle" from depleting the oxygen from the rest of media.
So you would order ATS/UAS, then Mech Filtration, then Bio in your Sump?