[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V3 #451

 
> I occassionaly have algae blooms in my 55gallon planted tank at home
and my
> 20 gallon in my classroom.
> More than once I have nearly bought "phosphate scrubbing" filter
media which
> advertises itself as an algae cure.
> My question is " Does it really work?" and the reason being, My
local home
> depot has a huge container of the stuff (made by Aquarium
Pharmacuticals)
> for ponds that is onsale for $10.
> I held off buying my Jobes Aquatic Plant stics on sale until I knew
if the
> other product is worth the effort.
> Any opinions?
> 
> TV

TV-
I use phosphate removers in my tanks and I have had good luck with
them.  I use them because my tap water has fairly high phosphates and
I have yet to decide to spend the money on water purification
(especially since all the other aspects of my water are wonderful). 
If I can get the stuff for $10 for a bunch of it, I may not ever spend
the money.

Justin Collins 
In my situation, is there merit to the
> 'competition from the filter' problem?  If so, can anyone recommend a
> medium that would help minimize this problem, while still allowing
me to
> collect mulm?  Less surface area, somehow?  
> 
> Alysoun McLaughlin
> Wheaton, Maryland

Alysoun-
I am currently running a Fluval 403 on my 60 gallon, which is rated
for up to 100 gallons.  I like the filter, and my plants do well,
except that I find that I have a problem with them getting blown
around.  The amount of water movement in my tank makes it a little
frustrating to arrange the plants, but they seem to do okay.  The flip
side of this is that in my unfiltered five gallon, the plants are
doing nearly as well with half the light and no CO2 injection.  This
is also probably in part to the lack of water movement preventing
outgassing of CO2.  Basically, using your ehiems on the tanks you have
is fine, but you could run into some problems.  I would be inclined to
try your smaller Ehiem on the big tank and see how you like it.  If it
dosen't work as well as you'd like, then you can always put the big
one on.  As far as a media that will filter but not have too much
bacterial action, I am not sure of any.  If you really don't want any
microbial action, then I would wash the ,media in chlorinated water on
a frequent basis.  Your other option is to buy a Magnum filter, which
is designed for mechanical and chemical filtration, but very little
biological (this was told to me by the Marineland rep when I ran into
him recently at my LFS).  They believe that the best place for
biological filtration is inside the tank on the various surfaces.

Justin Collins
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com