Unfiltered Water Movement??? - Page 2 - El Natural

Diana K · 12-13-2009, 07:46 AM

Instead of a nylon stocking put a very coarse sponge over the intake. A thin layer can be wrapped around the back half of the Koralia and it will act as a filter, trapping the stuff that otherwise would be flying around the tank.

Gentler water movement: Set the heater low in the tank. The rising warm water will create some water movement.

Air bubbler: same idea. As the bubbles rise they move some water.

Put the Koralia up higher so the force is dissipated by the time it gets close to the floor of the tank, so disturbs less debris.

Eheim canister filters are very slow moving and poor mechanical filters, but might add enough water movement without needing much cleaning.

mudboots · 12-18-2009, 10:57 AM

Howdy Diana K. For now (still out of town) I am going with the gentler water movement of a heater, one positioned horizontally on each end of the tank. By the time I get home it will have been a solid 8 days, so hopefullly that will be long enough to see if anything good or bad happened.

Diana K · 12-20-2009, 05:36 PM

Looking forward to seeing what happens.
IME I get that diffuse brownish sort of algae, not diatoms, when there is not enough water movement. Looks sort of like dust bunnies hanging around the bottom of the tank.

mudboots · 12-20-2009, 06:58 PM

I've got dust bunnies as well, but I figured it was because of too much waste compared to what the plants were able to utilize. It never occured to me that it might be algae...will anything eat it?

Anyway, I'm back in town, and while the plant growth was awesome, I also have a little bit of green in the water. It's not pea soup or anything that thick, but green is green, so it's not good. I usually keep the light fixtures resting on the top, very close to the water surface. I've just given them a lift by using the legs they came with. I did a 10% water change and will do another tomorrow and see what happens over the next week or two.

Side note - going from a constant lights-on photoperiod to the "siesta" (4.5 on, 4 off, 4.5 on) showed tremendous results over the 8 days I tried it out compared to the previous 3 weeks. Nice...except I have to do something about the water algae that seems to have appreciated this as well.

Philosophos · 12-20-2009, 08:06 PM

Diatoms disappear pretty quick with current/mechanical filtration or light increase.

I'm not so sure it's the siesta as much as possibly the after effects of blowing a bunch of organics into the column that would probably go right along side an NH4 dump. I'm sure the water change blows things around some as well.

Dustymac · 12-21-2009, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philosophos

Diatoms disappear pretty quick with current/mechanical filtration or light increase.

Phil,
I'd be interested to know your source for this belief. From what I know, diatoms are pretty sticky and can resist being dislodged by current unless the current is very strong. And they love light as well. Are you talking about saltwater diatoms?

Jim

Philosophos · 12-21-2009, 08:50 AM

Take a glance at the lack of pigment in classic brown diatom algae. How is that going to compete under high light? Is it advantageous to compete? Have you ever seen diatom algae outcompete Audouinella? Have you ever seen it shift pigment to compete? All I can comment on is the complete lack of evidence that it thrives in high light settings, save for ones with abnormally high silicates. Drop a micron filter in, find a better water source and the frustules fail to form properly while being pulled out of the column, causing diatoms to fade.

As for flow and diatoms:
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/...V087N3_072.pdf

mudboots · 12-21-2009, 10:08 AM

Pretty interesting read Dan; it's always nice to see some good studies in hard copy, especially when they help with aquarium keeping. As a side note, while I had the water movement the fluff was still looking healthy, but it was being blown all over the leaves and less dense in the substrate. With it off it is now all on the substrate and the leaves are clean. I vacuumed just a little of it up with my 10% water change yesterday and will repeat today to see what happens.

I'm also going to take a bit of it to the office and check it out under a scope just to make sure it's diatom and not fish "sludge". If I can manage a pic through the eye piece I'll share it, but the lighting doesn't always allow for such.

Dustymac · 12-21-2009, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philosophos

Take a glance at the lack of pigment in classic brown diatom algae. How is that going to compete under high light? Is it advantageous to compete?

Unless you're saying the diatoms are blinded by the light, I don't see it as a matter of competing. If you have enough light, CO2 and nutrients in the water, the diatoms will grow, perhaps right along side with everything else.

Quote:

Have you ever seen diatom algae outcompete Audouinella? Have you ever seen it shift pigment to compete? All I can comment on is the complete lack of evidence that it thrives in high light settings, save for ones with abnormally high silicates. Drop a micron filter in, find a better water source and the frustules fail to form properly while being pulled out of the column, causing diatoms to fade.

Well, that explains it. I do have high silicates in my water but haven't had a diatom problem for a long time. There must be some other limiting nutrient. The worst diatoms I ever had was back in the hi-tech days when BBA (Audouinella) swallowed up both my larger tanks and interestingly, under the microscope you could see a what a great strainer the BBA proved for anchoring sticky, wayward diatoms. That was the last time I ever saw diatoms in such numbers; they were all over everything, although I do have a few in the new NPT.

Quote:

As for flow and diatoms:
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/...V087N3_072.pdf

That's why I asked about the saltwater since SW tanks typically have much more water movement. As to your link, 15+ cm/sec is pretty fast. I get that on the outflow of my mini-jets when they're clean and operating at 100%. That flow dissipates quickly and I suspect the lower reaches, which get the least amount of light, see an average around 1-2 cm/sec. No diatoms down there, either.

Jim

Diana K · 12-21-2009, 12:18 PM

When one of my tanks grew diatoms I noticed a couple of things:
1) Diatoms grew in the 'less light' areas (compared to one end of the tank where direct sun hit for an hour or so each day)
2) They grew in every water movement, including the inside of the hoses for the filter (slightly smoky colored vinyl tubing).

This was a low end brackish tank, and Mollies ate it. They did not get it all, but as the silica disappeared so did the diatoms.

As for the 'dust bunny' algae (if it really is algae) I tried a 4-part approach:
Tank was a hard water set up with small fish from Lake Tanganyika.
a) remove whatever is possible to remove (maybe 50% of what was in the tank- it tangles with everything)
b) Add UV sterilizer
c) Add a molly relative called Liberty Mollies.
d) Clean up the filter and powerhead intakes and improve the water movement.

The stuff went away, for a while, but as the water movement slowed down it came back.
This tank has since crashed due to a power outage, so I cannot follow the 'dust bunny saga' any further.