Reduced Water Changes?

[abiddle]

Carbon does bugger all for tannin stained water.

Take the driftwood out, stick it in the sink, boil the kettle. Give it a wee scrub, then pour the boiled water all over it (bigger pieces will have to be moved around)

Stick back in your tank, and put a biochem zorb in your filter.

Biochem zorbs are so effective (and rechargable) that I had very very yellow water, by the next morning, it was clear.

I have found that this works very well.
Great advice!

You can eve soak the driftwood in a very diluted chlorine & water mixture, then scrub it and soak a few more days.

30% to 50% once a week will work for a well filtered tank that is not overstocked.

 

[Toddo]

Build an algae scrubber.

 

[Fishman0]

is the "algae scrubber" something that i saw in the DIY section under something like Powerful Nitrate Remover?

 

[Toddo]

Yup...read up on it and you decide....

http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/

 

[Fishman0]

ive seen the scrubber on this site before but never built one...
I may just have to build one that can fit into my sump as i saw on some of those designs.

BUT, will that consume all of the "bad" stuff in the tank, which would then result in fewer WC's?

has anyone been running one of these for an extended period of time and noticed better water quality? How well does your water params stay? and for how long?

 

[ampz]

ya boil ur wood first then soak it in water for a few weeks b4 U PUT IT IN YOUR TANKS THAT SHOULD HELP ALOT an feed every day

 

[Fishman0]

the activated carbon is getting rid of the "teaing" from the wood. BTW it wasnt turning the water dark only tinting it very slightly.

but still wondering if that scrubber will maintain water params where the natural chemicals will be consumed by the algae growth on the screen

 

[aggrofishkeeper]

I don't think there's anything that can substitute a water change. Instead of doing it every 3 days I would try doing it once a week maybe at the end of the week? For the driftwood tinting part the only thing that would get rid of that is to boil it or just ride it out with the water changes, eventually it will go away.


Good luck,

Jason

 

[TangoWRX]

I always dump the wood in a tub in my garage and leaving it soaking for a month or so. Then use carbon in the tank if there are still traces.

 

[Fishman0]

then weekly WC's it is... maybe i can experiment with the scrubber and seeing how long it can maintain acceptable water params in a smaller tank first for a "scale" run