Remove nitrates

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
You could rig up an algae scrubber in your sump under the effluent from your tank, without adding an extra pump. You'd just need to light the area above the scrubber.
Unlike higher plants, algae can make use of 24/7 light.


Usually a smaller grid screen is used, but because I was able to transfer hair algae from a sunlit tank, it has worked well.
 
I in my head again don't know how it'd really work.. Was thinking of doing from over flow to pre filter sponges to clean big debris then a fluidized bed filter then past a algae filter down into the rest of the sump where it house heaters and such... If it all works out I could have the algae screen 18inches wide by I'd say at least 24 inches long... Maybe I can even have a refugium but don't know if it's needed on a fw tank


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
Refugiums can work very well in freshwater tanks, I put them in between my sumps and tanks. They are great places in the water column for nitrate using higher plants, where cichlids uproot and eat them, and great places for fry, or raising shrimp or other invertebrates. I find when using refugiums, the need for "loads" of biological media is not so crucial.



 
So what's better a fugium or algae scrubber... I guess I could do both but don't think it'd work out so well in the long run it'd have to be a small algae scrubber but I like the idea for fry hmm


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
Just as I don't believe any one biological media is any better than another, I don't know that an algae scrubber is better than a refugium. All the above do the same/or similar things.
I like using an algae scrubber as competition for more undesirable algal life, such as cyanobacteria. I find, if a tank starts to get cyanobacteria, by starting a scrubber seeded with hair algae, if light conditions are right, the cyano can be controlled.
My sumps are mainly there to hold heaters, pumps and filter socks, if there is room I toss in some lava rock or old bio wheel for bio control, to me, anything laying in the water for a while becomes biomedia.
 
You said algae scrubbers the grow light can be on 24/7 so maybe that's a benefit as the stuffs always growing oppose to regular plants that need time in the dark idk how all that works lol


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
in one of his threads, F1 Vet showed how to make small algae scrubbers with led light built right into them. his was for the purpose of algae control not nitrate reduction, but you might get applicable ideas from it. I would assume, as duanes indicated, large ones serve both purposes.
 
On a 200 gallon i would drip around 30 gallons a day if the stock is moderate
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom