Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!
- Thread starter SantaMonica
- Start date
Algae provides alot of the trace minerals, carbohydrates, and all sorts of other stuff to the water column. The "circle of life" or "food chain" or "food pyramid" whatever you want to call it, starts out with life forms of this size and nature. They are the building blocks of more complex life. If the goal of your aquarium keeping is to simulate a natural body of water, adding a large volume of algae (in a controlled way such as ATS or refugium) is a great idea for higher/ more complex life forms to live as naturally as possible and have micro nutrients that we as human researchers might presently undervalue, thus not provide.
I totally agree. Trace minerals and elements are very important to all life forms. I take them every day.
No, you are thinking of "red tide", where a large amount of nutrients run-off of land and are absorbed by the algae.
If your refugium is to remove nutrients, then no. If it is to grow pods, then yes, using rock rubble.
No, still 35.
It should not really be that big. The new size guidelines are much smaller:
Scrubbers are now sized according to feeding. Nutrients "in" (feeding) must equal nutrients "out" (scrubber growth), no matter how many gallons you have. So...
An example VERTICAL waterfall screen size is 3 X 4 inches = 12 square inches of screen (7.5 X 10 cm = 75 sq cm) with a total of 12 real watts (not equivalent) of fluorescent light for 18 hours a day. If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen, but the total is still 12 watts for 18 hours a day. This screen size and wattage should be able to handle the following amounts of daily feeding:
1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen), or
1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen), or
10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen), or
5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen), or
10 square inches (60 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen), or
5 square inches (30 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen), or
0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen), or
0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)
High-wattage technique: Double the wattage, and cut the hours in half (to 9 per day). This will get brown screens to grow green much faster. Thus the example above would be 12 watts on each side, for a total of 24 watts, but for only 9 hours per day. If growth starts to turn YELLOW, then increase the flow, or add iron, or reduce the number of hours. And since the bulbs are operating for 9 hours instead of 18, they will last 6 months instead of 3 months.
HORIZONTAL screens: Multiply the screen size by 4, and the wattage by 1.5Flow is 24 hours, and is at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen [60 lph per cm], EVEN IF one sided or horizontal.
Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas.
Clean algae off of screen every 7 to 14 days, so that you can see the white screen material.
***And since the bulbs are operating for 9 hours instead of 18, they will last 6 months instead of 3 months.***
**Bulbs** Hahahahaa ahahaha Bulbs! ha haahah
**Bulbs** Hahahahaa ahahaha Bulbs! ha haahah
New scrubber update: The new design will not require a slot in the pipe. If you have not built one yet, and you have trouble with DIY, then you might wait for the new DIY plans to be posted; there should be no hard-to-cut pieces (like a slot), at least for the very simple versions.
