Paul1792
Aquarium Advice Freak
I have to use $1 a gallon bottled spring water due to exceptionally poor quality of tap so keeping nitrates down is difficult albeit manageable.
I had never even heard of an algae scrubber to control this problem until today. Essentially by forcing algae to grow densely in close quarters, nitrates and phosphates are kept to a minimum. It utilizes a bright light and an air pump. For the most part, this is copied and pasted from the general discussion of Nitrate removal
In my 38 gallon ....... which is 100% stocked with 44 fish per aqadvisor.com, I am running 3 x 100 ml bags of Purigen plus lots of Matrix in addition to the Fluval C3 Cnodes and the AquaClear bio-max. This does help keep nitrates in control but due to such heavy stocking, I have to make about 20% weekly water changes, substrate vacuums, & pre-filter rinsings to keep it 20 ppm nitrate or less.
The thing I hate about it is ...... to catch the waste before the BB convert it to nitrate ... the substrate vacuums have to be pretty thorough which means "re-aqua-scape" the darn tank constantly.
I had never heard of an algae scrubber but I watched the youtube video ...... and the $27 version doesn't cut it for aesthetics.
Looks like this would work but it's pricey:
HOG.5 Hang-On-Glass UAS Upflow Algae Scrubber - 1/2 Cube feeding per day - MAGNET VERSION
Here it is on Amazon for $129:
HOG.5 Hang-On-Glass UAS Upflow Algae Scrubber - 1/2 Cube feeding per day - MAGNET VERSION
Here is a youtube demo:
I really do like the idea. It seems to me I could alternate its use on both my tanks. Any other ideas or suggestions?
Anyone else that has used a algae scrubber that is not an eyesore for a freshwater tank please chime in.
Something tells me I'm going to end up getting one if they work well in freshwater tanks. Mostly I see them being used in saltwater tanks.
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
I had never even heard of an algae scrubber to control this problem until today. Essentially by forcing algae to grow densely in close quarters, nitrates and phosphates are kept to a minimum. It utilizes a bright light and an air pump. For the most part, this is copied and pasted from the general discussion of Nitrate removal
In my 38 gallon ....... which is 100% stocked with 44 fish per aqadvisor.com, I am running 3 x 100 ml bags of Purigen plus lots of Matrix in addition to the Fluval C3 Cnodes and the AquaClear bio-max. This does help keep nitrates in control but due to such heavy stocking, I have to make about 20% weekly water changes, substrate vacuums, & pre-filter rinsings to keep it 20 ppm nitrate or less.
The thing I hate about it is ...... to catch the waste before the BB convert it to nitrate ... the substrate vacuums have to be pretty thorough which means "re-aqua-scape" the darn tank constantly.
I had never heard of an algae scrubber but I watched the youtube video ...... and the $27 version doesn't cut it for aesthetics.
Looks like this would work but it's pricey:
HOG.5 Hang-On-Glass UAS Upflow Algae Scrubber - 1/2 Cube feeding per day - MAGNET VERSION
Here it is on Amazon for $129:
HOG.5 Hang-On-Glass UAS Upflow Algae Scrubber - 1/2 Cube feeding per day - MAGNET VERSION
Here is a youtube demo:
I really do like the idea. It seems to me I could alternate its use on both my tanks. Any other ideas or suggestions?
Anyone else that has used a algae scrubber that is not an eyesore for a freshwater tank please chime in.
Something tells me I'm going to end up getting one if they work well in freshwater tanks. Mostly I see them being used in saltwater tanks.
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
