Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everything

[SantaMonica]

Varga did you rub algae into the screen?

[Varga]

you sure know your algae

I didn't rub any, should I? there's already a little growing on there, I'm guessing the pump sucked it out of the tank and the screen caught it.

what type of algae should I rub on there? I have a nice selection at my disposal We've got 2 kinds of cyano, nice selection of hair algae, and some strange stuff on the egg crate, and some crazy white plant growing in the over flow box. I'm afraid to touch it

[SantaMonica]

Ha ha. You should rub green hair/slime, or diatoms. Sand it first on both sides, then rub the algae hard into the plastic. Then wash off. The invisible spores will stick. If you can get clumps to stick, that's ok too.

[SantaMonica]

Here's an interesting ultra-easy screen someone just made, using a gravel vac:

[SantaMonica]

Ok here are the results of the 5 gal nano test. First, here is the tank, which has 3 pounds LR, a SSB, along with a purple lobster, a starfish, and a clown:




The tank has been on an office worker's desk (his first tank), with no water changes for about four months. The last change was done only to get nitrate down (a result of overfeeding of course), in order to keep the animals happy. Phosphate was not a concern since there were no corals, and thus there was no phosphate removal system in place.

As you can see, the light and most of the hood were removed, as was the little sponge filter. The remaining part of the hood has a compartment for the sponge filter, which is 2 X 3 inches, and it has a little built in pump to move water across this compartment. I started out by taking some tank-divider material and cutting it to a tight fit into the compartment:




Then I sanded it very rough on the top, and I "seeded" it by taking some green hair algea and rubbing the algae HARD into the sanded side. Then I pushed the screen into the sponge filter compartment:




The screen is only 6 square inches, single sided, and thus not enough for this tank according to the rule of thumb of one square inch per gallon (double sided), or two square inches per gallon (single sided). Thus for this 5 gal tank single-sided I should have 10 square inches instead of 6, but of course for simplicity I just used the compartment size.

Since we had already removed the original tank light, we were going to just use the light for the screen as the new tank light too. So I just took one of the same bulbs that I used in the bucket, a 23 Watt, 5100K compact fluorescents "full-spectrum" (125W output equivalent):


23 Watt R40 Compact Fluorescent Flood 5100K Full Spectrum CFL


...and set it directly on the plastic hood, which put it only a half inch from the flowing water:




Thankfully these CFL's run very cool, and you can put your hand right on them without burning. Of course if you try this light placement yourself, you'd want to test it carefully so that you don't melt anything, and won't knock the bulb over. I thought that the light might heat up the water, but it does not seem to. The light is on an 18-hour-on timer, and provides the tank itself with much more light than the original hood light did.



Results: Here are the measurements (Salifert) and pics taken over a period of days:


....................N...........P
.
day 0..........*............*...............not measured
day 1........(50)........( .5 )
day 2..........*............*...............not measured
day 3..........*............*...............not measured
day 4..........*............*...............not measured
day 5........(50)........( .5 )
day 6........(25)........( .25 )
day 7........(15)........( .13 ).........screen full
day 8........(15)........(1.0)...........screen full
day 9........(10)........(1.0)...........whole screen cleaned (mistake)
day 10......(10)........(1.0)...........growing back
day 11......(8.0).......(1.0)...........growing back more
day 12......(8.0).......(1.0)...........half cleaned
day 13......(8.0).......( .5 )
day 14......(5.0).......( .25 ).........other half cleaned
day 15......(8.0).......( .13 )
day 16......(3.0).......( .13 ).........other half cleaned; housing cleaned
day 17......( 2.5 ).....( .05 )
day 18......( .5 ).......( .05 )
day 19......( .2 ).......( .05 ).........other half cleaned (not much there)
day 20......(0)..........( .015 ).......green growing back over brown
day 21......(0)..........(0)..............green growing longer


Day 2:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay02screen.jpg

Day 3:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay03screen.jpg

Day 7:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay07screen.jpg

Day 9, before complete cleaning:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...eScrapeDay.jpg

Day 9, After complete cleaning (mistake)

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...fterScrape.jpg

Day 12, half cleaned:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...halfScrape.jpg

Day 16:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay16screen.jpg

Day 17:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay17screen.jpg

Day 18:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay18screen.jpg

Day 19, in tank:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...19screenIn.jpg

Day 19, removed:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...nOutBefore.jpg

Day 19, after cleaning top half:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...enOutAfter.jpg


You'll see on day 7 that the screen filled up. However I had never seen it full before, so I did not know what "full" looked like. So I left it to see how full it would get. Day 8 the screen looked the same, but there was a big increase in P, and I surmised that the screen had filled up and some strands of algae were shadowing others, causing the others to detach and flow into the tank and die (not enough light in the tank to survive). So I waited one more day to be sure (day 9), and sure enough the P was still very high.

So on Day 9 I cleaned (mistakenly) the whole screen, whereas I should have only cleaned half. Thus, I had no filtering, and it took a few day to fill in again. By day 14, nitrate and phosphate were at reasonable levels, and I was doing half-screen cleanings properly. By day 18 the nitrate and phosphate were bottoming out and staying constant, and nitrate eventually got to zero at day 20.


So the things learned:

1) A small screen size, even one sided, can do a tremendous job of filtering. (Phosphate from .5 to .015, and Nitrate from 50 to 0, in three weeks).

2) It can do this filtering with a constant flow of water (no pulsing), although a timer on the little pump would be easy to add and try out.

3) It can do this filtering with regular green algae; it has not had time to form true red/brown turf, although it was starting to feel like some was growing.

4) It all can be done in the nano's hood, with a standard light, for free.


Ok, now it's seriously time for you nano folks to try this!

[Varga]

WOW That thing is really working

[SantaMonica]

It's because of the strong light. The same bulb as used on the bucket, but only 1/2" from the screen.

[pinantanjohn]

I wonder how it would work if it was vastly oversized. I mean, to avoid fluctuations in parameters, I was thinking of a two or three screen system that would be cycled through over the two week period. You would have a screen almost full and one cleaned pretty much constantly.
Perhaps I'm over-engineering or over thinking the thing. Just trying to find a less expensive way to get into salt with my freebee 55 gallon.
the thing that got my attention with this type of filter is the lower necessity for water changes, the reduction of importance in feeding amount/times and the increased availability for live food (pods).

John

[SantaMonica]

You almost got it. You want a turf bucket (see original post) because it's two-sided and you only clearn one side at a time. For a 55 gal, you want a 55 sq in screen (7 X 7 will do), which will fit into a 2 gal bucket. Use the same bulbs, and you will have no N aor P in that tank. I'd recommend a wave timer on the pump, but it's not critical. If you build it using the above-pictured gravel vac, you can have it going in one hour.

[Witfull]

awesome work everyone~

[jski711]

wow this is cool. what would be the best way to just hang one over my sump? i was going to order one from inland but i've never seen these sheets before and don't know how rigid they are and how to "hang" one. any ideas would be great. this is a very cool thread. thanks in advance.

Jake

also what size screen should i get, i have a 75g, 36g sump and a 15g plumbed into that same system.

[SantaMonica]

jski it's one square inch of screen per gallon, if you are lighting both sides. There is a chart at the beginning of the post. The screens from IA are stiff, and will stand up, but need to be inserted into the slot of the waterfall pipe at the top. Here's an example of suspending the screen over your sump:

[jski711]

i was thinking about using something to go throught the screen and hang below the pipe. i was also thinking about t'ing off my return to avoid running another pump. lmk what would work. thanks,

Jake

[jski711]

ok so 12X12 screen would work fine. LMK what you think about using the return pump. thanks,

Jake

[slakker]

I'm very intrigued with the nano... my biggest complain about the biocubes is that the Protein Skimmers don't work very well... I have a 14G BC with the Oceanic Skimmer, and it does a ok job... I should see if there's a way to rig this into the middle chamber of the BC...

Anyone done this before? Ideas?