K3 media algae scrubber

[SuperNinja]

Hi Everyone,

I’m thinking of trying out an K3 media fluidized bed filter with a grow light on it. This would be in my corner overflows and then drain to my sump. Hitting the mechanical filtration for any hair algae that falls off. Has anyone tried a grow light on their biomedia to promoOr K1 for that matter?

my two overflows at 8”x8” x 24 tall

 

[markstrimaran]

Hi Everyone,

I’m thinking of trying out an K3 media fluidized bed filter with a grow light on it. This would be in my corner overflows and then drain to my sump. Hitting the mechanical filtration for any hair algae that falls off. Has anyone tried a grow light on their biomedia to promoOr K1 for that matter?

my two overflows at 8”x8” x 24 tall

View attachment 1479315

The vertical pipe inside the overflow, might interfere with the circular flow. Then it might make a nice algea beater offer.

I built a Fluidized algea scrubber inside a custom sump. It uses practice golf balls as media. The main issues was the growth of angel hair, good, and turf algea bad. The turf algea which grows best at lower nitrates is too tough for air bubbles to be self cleaning... That said I have about 5 kinds of algea growing, from deliberately introducing, drift wood, river rocks.

At plus 30 ppm Nitrates, the finer angel hair algea out competes and stuffs of nicely, makes for a good auto feeder for cichlids.

A perfect fluidized algea scubber would be a 12" round glass pipe, with a vertical manifold injecting water in a circular motion, with slightly heavy media.

In a overflow, that's square, you might try an air stone on one end with a water jet pushing down on the upper opposite end.

 

[SuperNinja]

I’ve seen you set ip and love your biochar thread! I didn’t know the golf balls were fluidized. My nitrates are usually 35-45 ppm when i test on Sundays with the hanna nitrate checker. I agree the set up wouldn’t be the most efficient but if it can grow algae and keep it out of the main tank as well as reduce some nitrates i’d be more than happy. I like the fluidized bed so that way it keep detritus from building up at the bottom of my overflows. Plus the overflows go straight to filter pads so any hair algae that falls off will certainly get caught and I don’t have to worry about my return pump

 

[SuperNinja]

Got a 10 gallon all set up. I’m dumping all the fish poop from vacuuming and scooping lungfish poop into the system. Have two grow lights i will run 24/7 and threw in a bit of hair algae from my grow out thank. I will try and update this thread to see if this is a wild enough idea to actually work

 

[markstrimaran]

I reverted to a upflow algea scrubber, inside my sump. Here I toying with the idea, but using rigorous flow to beat the algea off the balls. Need to drill a sump drain, and get the pump in a prefilled loop. Mean while, it grows a floating layer of algea.

 

[SuperNinja]

I reverted to a upflow algea scrubber, inside my sump. Here I toying with the idea, but using rigorous flow to beat the algea off the balls. Need to drill a sump drain, and get the pump in a prefilled loop. Mean while, it grows a floating layer of algea.

View attachment 1479332

love that will have to post some side pics for a complete idea of your whole set up