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Re: Plant filter



>On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Tom Barr wrote:
>
>> ..........But you can add the plants to the filter or to the tank itself.
>> More plants is more plants.
>
>This struck me as being a significant point when we're talking about
>putting a plant filter on a planted tank.  A heavily planted tank doesn't
>need biological filteration unless it's carrying a fish load that's high
>enough to be very stressful to the fish.  For a well-planted tank any
>biological filter -- including a "plant filter" -- is pretty pointless.
>
>Unless, of course you *enjoy* cleaning that thing.

But I don't clean it, only prune<G>!
A note here might help too. If your CO2 crashes or is funny -the plants in
the "air" or the filter will get CO2 no matter what and never get algae.
Basically only nutrients will ever cause them to crash. Kind of like
insurance in case something fouls up as per Murphy's law! Looks cool too.
They work damn good on fish only tanks too. Less potential for crashing if
you remove the aquatic plants also. I removed swords with little crashing
with the plant filter but without I had a much larger crash. It was not a
scientific notion here but just one that seems to happen several times in
some tanks. It could've been something else too.

Plant filter can grow more plants with less light than any fish tank
exporting more waste that is more easily pruned. Emersed growth versus
submersed growth in terms of bio-mass is far less keeping the amount of
pruning down also. Nutrient surges in the tank seem to be evened out by
these plant filter also. They have the advantage(emersed) while no worry of
algae. The plants say: You want to give me more nutrients? Sure thing!  

I ALWAYS say, I have never seen a tank yet that couldn't use a plant!
Regards, 
Tom Barr