Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

[SantaMonica]

What to dose when you don't do waterchanges

Many folks ask if anything needs to be dosed, if they stop doing water changes. If a reef tank, you'll certainly need to dose Calcium and Alkalinity. Then some Magnesium when needed. And maybe Strontium. The easiest way to dose Cal and Alk is by mixing some powdered lime with your topoff water. For details, search for "kalkwasser dripping". The powder is cheap from here: http://store.mrswagesstore.com/mrswagpiclim.html

Everything else is supplied by the food you feed, and by the organics from the scrubber. This includes all the trace elements that you always hear about. Remember that in the ocean, 90% of all life (besides bacteria) is algae. Algae provides all the food for everything that lives in the ocean, by coverting the sun into organics. And included in these organics are the trace elements that your tank needs too. Cal and Alk, however, are inorganic, and are used up quickly by corals and coralline, so you need to dose them often or continuously. Mag is dosed when your test says to. And the same with Strontium.

 

[starkie]

hi do these need less hours of light if exposed to natural day light hoping to build a pond and wouldnt mind trying one of these but using natural light as the only light source

 

[98dak83cam]

I like the idea of this project, I'm going to give it a try.

 

[SantaMonica]

You can build a totally solar (sun powered) one. Look through the pics of scrubbers and find the solar examples.

 

[SantaMonica]

Here is the design for the nano scrubber box. This can be easily built by giving the plans to an acrylic shop. They can either build it for you, or, they can cut the pieces for you and you can silicone it together (use only aquarium-safe silicone)...

full size: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/25.jpg

 

[leg89]

ok i'd like to give it a try, but i def want to keep my actual sump.

still, i have my empty old sump next to my new one under the main tank (200G) and was thinking bout this, but not sur the flow rates would be ok...your thoughts?

 

[The1and only]

I wonder if this light would work or if it would be the wrong spectrum of light.

 

[Accident]

FW update. My horizontal AS in my 130 gal has hair algae growing in it like crazy. (see previous posts for pix) The black algae is still growing on the sand tho. The shade created by the AS has reduced the black algae on the left side of the tank. Right side is the same.

 

[Keith.B.Nimble]

Accident

I don't understand this statement "The shade created by the AS has reduced the black algae on the left side of the tank. Right side is the same." Is the AS mounted above the left hand side of the tank therefore blocking the light into the tank?

Keith

 

[Accident]

Accident

I don't understand this statement "The shade created by the AS has reduced the black algae on the left side of the tank. Right side is the same." Is the AS mounted above the left hand side of the tank therefore blocking the light into the tank?

Keith

Yes it is. You understand perfectly. I'll repost the pix.....

Left side of the tank is a tad darker due to the AS blocking the light from the 65w CF 6700k buld (or 6500k, cant remember).

It sits on top of the acrylic tank under the canopy lid.





This is a top down view with the lid open of my scrubber. Search back in this thread for more details. I'll try to get a pic of the hair algae today.
I'm optimistic that the hair algae will begin to give the desired results, ie, tie up all the nutrients to kill the black algae on the sand.

!A