Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

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SantaMonica

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Oct 9, 2008
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Santa Monica, CA, USA
B_IN_SD

B_IN_SD

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jul 12, 2006
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Sturgis S.D.
In your original post it says this increases the Ph. Can you explain why this happens,. I came back to revisit this thd because of a tank of mine that has constantly high no3 and I need to do something about it besides w/c's. My Ph is 8.4 from the tap and rock hard gh/kh 20+
 
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SantaMonica

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Oct 9, 2008
680
53
61
Santa Monica, CA, USA
A reminder about lighting:

Stronger lighting is always better, until you start "burning" the algae. Burned algae will be yellow, because it is getting too much light but not enough nutrients from the flow. More light requires more nutrients, which give you more filtering.

So if you have yellow growth, increase the flow so that more nutrient are delivered to the algae. If you can't increase flow, then add some iron. If you can't add iron, then reduce the number of hours the lights are on. Do not reduce the wattage, however; stronger light for less hours is better than weaker light for more hours, because weaker light will grow darker algae. Stronger light grows bright green algae, which does the most filtering.
 
S

SantaMonica

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Oct 9, 2008
680
53
61
Santa Monica, CA, USA
This is an experimental fix for brown/black growth, and also for extending the life of the bulbs past 3 months:

1. Use bulbs with twice the wattage as recommended; so use 2 real watts per square inch (6.25 sq cm) of screen. Thus a screen 10 X 10 inches = 100 square inches would get 200 total real watts of light instead of 100 watts.

2. Run the lights for half as many hours as recommended; this would be 9 hours instead of 18.

3. Around 3 months, when the growth starts to get darker (because the bulbs are getting weaker), start increasing hours until it grows green again. When you reach 18 hours, it's time for new bulbs.

This does a few things: The first is obvious; you will get longer bulb life as long as you remember to increase the hours when you get to 3 months. But stronger light can also turn black/brown growth into green, no matter how high the nutrients are, if the light is strong enough. The trick is just to not burn the algae; thus the hours have to be less.

When the light is strong (compared to the nutrients), more of the growth is physical algae, and it's also more green (less proteins). When the light is weak (compared to the nutrients), more of the growth is DOC and dark physical growth (more proteins).
 
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