Watercress refugium Experiment

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J

Just Toby

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2010
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Guildford UK
I have recently added a large planting basket to a shelf in my sump, I have added a bag of watercress from Tesco which is planted in a small amount of gravel.

1) I washed the cress and put it in a washing up bowl with about 2 cm of fresh water and set it in the window of the kitchen and changed the water daily for one week until the bottom leaves yellowed and fell off and little routes started.

2) I then added it to my sump and in normal running the basket has about 2 cm of water in the gravel

3) The sump is lit 12 hrs per day

The Cress has grown 2 inches in 1 week and my Nitrates are currently under 10ppm and I have switched off my ion exchange resin

Pics and further tests to follow
 
Will be very interesting to see how you get on Toby,seems its working already,you won't have to go to Tesco's now to get your salad..Lol!!
 
What was the nitrate reading before adding the watercress and turning off the ion exchange?
 
If I normally turn off the ion exch resin the nitrate creeps up to aroun 25-40 ppm over a week.

The nitrate was below 25ppm before I put it in but my auto water change has done 50 gals since been in there.

The acid test will be to see if it remains at 10ish ppm or ideally drops to a trace.

Some of it has grown an inch since last post and added new shhots but this could be initial growth spurt or maybe the abundance of new energy?

I find it hard to believe that 1 bag could make any impact but it is growing fast and I have room to add another bag full in another planter.

Will keep you all posted.
 
UPDATE: The cress has grown right to the top of the sump now and is pushing on the cover glass, other srpigs are catching up.

BUT

Did a test today and the Nitrate has risen to 30ppm or slightly more.

Whilst I am dissapointed I will keep monitoring as it will be doing something, I will probably add another bag and see if the levels drop back. I truly think that I simply do not have enough of it.

Another auto water change will take place this evening so I will try to test before and after that to see what difference it makes.

One important point to make is that this experiment is inspired by Firemedics "pothos" success along with a program I watched where a trout farm was filtered by nothing but cress.
 
I applaud your use of natural means & hope your tests are productive, however you haven't filled any blanks of your system, so its not even possible to determine if it can be prevented at the start
 
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