niko

Find Dieter's site. It's in German.

There you will read that the filtration through a Poret filter foam happens only in the first 1 cm or so of the entire sponge. How they figured that out I don't know. But it basically means that the media must not be too thick because it makes no sense.

Biomedia this thin presents a logical problem - your filter canister needs to acomodate a mat that is thin but with its total volume being 10% of your aquarium volume. That's not our typical canister - cylindrical or box shaped. If you want a container that will fit a thin and big mat then you are looking for something like a shallow box. And distributing the flow over the entire biofilter media is another problem to solve.

So the Japanese once again have figured it out. Bigger size biomedia with enough gaps to let the water channel through it. Does not clog. Doesn't need frequent rinsing. Does not have pores that are too fine. Fits in a canister that is cylindrical, not some kind of funky shallow box. The pump is pressure rated - if there is any clogging it ramps up and maintains the flow as if nothing happened. And the pump is external - so no magetic fields bother the living system. Believe or laugh at magnetic fields affecting your aquarium you have to admit that the Japanese know more than you imagine.

A planted tank is a very different beast from a fish only tank or a reef tank. I could actually say that keeping the sytem semi-dirty, hitting it with a lot of light and CO2 and achieving 0 algae is a completely crazy task which is actually achievable. But one needs to hammer it in their head that everything works as a system. Buy yourself an expensive ADA canister filter and tell me if it solves all the issues you have. It won't. And the opposite - you can replace that expensive filter with another one - just like ADG has successfully done for some time now and their planted tanks still work out fine. That's because that fancy filter is part of a whole system. A carefully designed one. And if you undersand it you can alter, rescue or mess it up at will.

--Nikolay

digital_gods

I have to agree with Niko running the take little dirty works. I get a higher concentration of Nitrates that the plants use. I watch closely for the different algae types that appear and adjust accordingly. I'm running the high lights and co2 injection. What I find my system needing the most added to it is more potassium and micro. The rest of the macro is by product of the bio load.

Back to the topic of gph, another thing that will affect gph is buildup with in your hoses. I experience this with my goldfish tank.

niko

A planted tank "system" is dirty because we maintain some nutrients in the water column. To me it doesn't matter if that's the widely accepted 5-10 N, and 0.5-1 Phosphate or 30 N and 2P. All of these concentrations provide enough food for algae if they can find a way to grow.

If you open any AquaJournal from the beginning of time till now and look at the tank specs you will see the same thing - zero nutrients. Of course we know that the Japanese add nutrients. But it's only in amounts that the plants can eat up quickly. So in a way they do not keep a "semi-dirty" system like we do. We let Nutrients linger - EI, PPS or your own version of them. Funny enough noone can say that EI or PPS grows better plants than ADA with their seemingly nutrient depleted tanks.

How all that has to do with filtration? Once again - it is all a system and it works together. As I said - if you understand it you can tweak it to your liking. Here's an example - we all know these pictures and videos from Amano's gallery in Niigata. I always wondered how on Earth they keep those powerful halide lights on all the time so every visitor throughout the day sees the tanks well lit, at their best. From what I understand the halides are on all the time. Makes no sense. But really it does - if you have a way to tweak the system you can do seemingly impossible things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xjV6_3Xgoc

So - filtration that works + careful fertilizing make a seemingly impossible task work: Strong lights for 8 hours a day, no crazy plant growth issues, no algae. Some years ago I experimented with EI and strong light for 8 hours a day. I had pictures showing how my stem plants grew 18 inches in 2-1/2" days. Impossible to maintain.

About the filter being 8-10% of the tank volume: Here are some pictures of the smallest ADA tanks. Each is equipped with an ugly Eheim and fancy "invisible" tubing setup. Note the volume of the filter in relation to the volume of the tank:



By the way - ADA may not exactly follow the general rules I talk about here. Most of us have heard about larger ADA tanks not being lit as bright as small ones. We don't exacly know why but they probably have a good reason. Trying to copy their system could be frustration also because it's dynamic - for example the filter has different combinations of media in different phases of the tank development. Normally we don't really change the medias. But it sounds pretty logical to match the needs of the tank with the filtration media.

By the way - about a lot of flow, dirty hoses, etc. I just installed a 640 gph pump on one of my filters. But because my plumbing is dumb (long pipes and 90 degree angle connections) all I get from that new pump is 257 gph measured at the outflow. My point is - the assumption that your flow is much less than what you may think is probably correct for most planted tanks. And if we add the blocking of the flow by the plants then it really becomes clear that we need to know more about why exactly ADA has chosen that funky looking Lily pipe outflow. What exactly is the targeted pattern of the water movement?

Here are a few videos potentially related to the question of water flow in a planted tank. Or maybe the videos are just amusing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl3FjSh_gwk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVV587m4i0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSUKNxVXE4E

Tex_Gal, you NEED several laminar flow jets on your pool! Tell me you don't after watching these videos!

--Nikolay

Tex Gal

That laminar flow is incredible. Yes! I want some!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or8i_...eature=related

I'm not sure how it works. The first couple examples were powered by a simple water hose. Wikapedia says laminar flow occurs at less velocities, yet it looks like more water. It also say higher velocities makes a turbulent flow. It sure looks the opposite of what it is.

Amazing that you cut your flow down by half just with just the plumbing. I guess bigger is really better....

Bert H

Great discussion here! You guys should consider moving it to the main forum for more visibility.

Niko, your initial post explains what I discovered a long time ago that if I clean my cannister thoroughly, I get cloudy water for the next 4-6 days. Even cleaning out only the sponges creates a little cloudiness, but to a much lesser extent/duration.

So, perhaps one of the 'take homes' of this is to always buy a much larger filter than you think you need.

niko

I do not want this discussion in the main forum. I want it right here in the DFWAPC sub-forum, where I posted it.

I have my reasons for it. Please do not move it.

Always get larger filtration - yes. But only in conjunction with many other factors. If there is a "take home lesson" that is it - all factors need to work together. Hooking up a larger filter may or may not work good. If we continue missing the big picture we will always have tanks that work and tanks that don't.

I started this topic in the spur of the moment. And I have opened up like never before about the information that I've have had access to for some time now. So far I only urged people to go out and look for the information themselves. There has been somewhat of an interest in my hints and suggestions. So I want to keep this new information local, DFW Club mainly topic so it benefits us as a club. Anyone interested can for my "oh-so-great" posts right here.

My goal is to shed more light about setting up a replicable unproblematic planted tanks. Setup that works every time. That we can all replicate over and over. If ADA, ADG, Oliver Knott and others can do it why is it that US hobbyists as a whole can't? From what I understand ADG is gearing up to put out a lot of useful information. I hope it is exactly what this hobby needs (no more ordering rocks Japanese style and how to use cardboard to divide dry gravel in a cool way). I also hope that if ADG does that it does it in a way that is not leaving the information there and not creating interest in it.

A comparison with the state of the marine aquarium hobby could help us see the planted tank hobby in a more realistic light. The marine aquarium hobby - the reef side of it has started to experiment more with aquascaping just in the last few years. I see more and more "aquascaped" reef tanks. Reefers have knowledge, equipment, and are not stingy. The planted tank hobby is the opposite (at least in the US) - we start with the aquascaping, still haven't figured out the technical part, and we are tight with our money. 10 years at least and we have moved ahead just a little bit. And definitely not in terms of the tanks being replicable. Things don't need to be expensive - they just need to be done with more insight.

--Nikolay

Phil Edwards

Jeff,

Disclaimer: I've only ever used Eheim filters on my personal tanks. My methods are based on the size, shape, and number of media baskets specific to Eheim. Your mileage may vary with different brand filters.

*I know for certain this won't work well with Magnum canisters due to the arrangement of the media container. When using Magnum filters I fill the media canister to the top with Activated Carbon and never touch it again. It may get an occasional shake on old tank water to loosen things up but the only thing that gets washed or replaced is the physical filter mitt.

I just dump as much rock as will fit in the media containers and let it run. I learned quickly not to "top off" with the media as one would do with a gas tank. Cramming the baskets full reduced flow. Dump the rock in, shake it to settle everything out and add a little more if necessary to get the media level with the top of the basket.

Tying into Niko's point of changing media over time as the tank matures; I typically run only a single coarse sponge and two or three fine filter pads in the beginning. As the fine pads get clogged I replace them with the coarse pads or more lava rock. I feel it's important to provide as much area for bacterial colonization as possible in the beginning while the system is fairly clean of particulates.

My typical media setup in an Eheim Pro 2 2026(?) at six months on is one or two coarse pads, one fine pad for particulate removal, and the rest lava rock. When doing routine filter maintenance the only bit that is rinsed with tap is the fine pad. Since it's such a small percentage of total filtration there are no small cycles/bacterial blooms as BertH described.

Every three to six months I'll grab a bucket of tank water and shake the lava rock out. In researching salt water aquariums I heard a lot of talk about their rock accumulating nutrients to an unhealthy level over time. I figured it was the same with rock or other porous media in a planted tank's filter.

Over time the media accumulates small particles and dissolved nutrients. As the particles clog the pores in the rock they become anaerobic microecosystems that actually become a nutrient input rather than nutrient sink. Niko touched on this when talking about decreased flow causing a release of ammonia into the system. When my tanks start showing signs of imbalance and/or nuisance algae even though I'm doing everything properly I know it's time to rinse the rock out. Invariably, the tank appears healthier within a day or two after cleaning.

When running two filters I typically blast the media in one filter with my sink spray nozzle or under the tub faucet to remove as much buildup as possible. A month or two later I'll do it to the other filter. Sometimes the insertable media pads get cleaned at the same time as this, but I typically leave them dirty to maintain stability and help recolonize the lava rock media.

Along that vein, I've found that I can pretty regularly spike a Green Water bloom by washing all the filter media with tap water, basically killing any microfauna in the filter. If nuisance algae are still an issue after typical filter maintenance, spiking green water has been a valuable tool for nutrient management in densely planted aquariums or in aquascapes that are close to photographic maturity.

Michael

Phil, thanks for the explanantion. Through a strange and fortuante Craig's List swap, I am the new owner of a used Eheim 2217. I know next to nothing about these filters!

--Michael

Phil Edwards

On the topic of ADA technique/system and nutrient availablilty. I'll tell you what, they're not doing anything that hasn't already been around for millions of years. They just applied what's going on in healthy natural aquatic systems to a glass container.

In most cases, robust, algae poor, communities of aquatic plants grow in water that is depleted of phosphorus and to a lesser extent, nitrogen. Think about the San Marcos, the plants there are growing gangbusters and that water comes from deep in the earth. It's probably some of the cleanest untreated water in Texas! So why the hell are the plants doing so well? Their nutrient source is the sediment/soil, not the water column. (Sound familiar Drinda?)

Going back to Aqua Soil, it's packed full of degradable organics that provide nutrients at the location aquatics take them up the most, their roots. (Dian Smith, PhD and R. Michael Smart, PhD, personal communication)

What about all those funky powders and stuff ADA wants to sell us? Isn't it a bunch of crap? No. What are some of them; bacteria, Iron, Magnesium, micronutrients, etc. These are all elements which tend to get sequestered in aquatic sediments and are only available in usable form in the very top 0.5-2.0cm of the sediment. Anything else is locked away until the plants change the oxidation state of the sediment around their roots, which causes the nutrients to change into a soluble and plant-usable form.

Aqua Soil isn't a complete diet for plants; it's pretty good for an initial burst of macros and is amazing for root development. The other additives are what completes the picture and balances the diet, if you will. Once the initial nutrient release (mineralizing Aqua Soil, that was for you AaronT and Sean!) and algae bloom the water column is nutrient depleted but the substrate is enriching constantly with time. That's also why there are different formulations of BrightyK and Green Gain to be used as the tank ages. They're formulated to suppliment the natural processes in the tank which influence nutrient availability.

Inorganic nitrogen as nitrate is the one macronutrient which doesn't bind to substrates and tends to remain in the water column. However, regular input of degradable material such as feces and excess food, into the substrate and slow release of N from degrading organics in the Aqua Soil are a source of N in the root zone. That's why you don't see much about nitrogen supplimentation in the ADA literature or hear about it when talking to Amano about water column supplimentation.

It all goes back to the original ADA philosophy of taking queues from nature and modifying them to fit the needs of an aquarium. "Only man's artifice over nature could produce such beauty".

Sure, even the ADA gallery tanks have algae, but from all appearances their systems are supremely balanced and managable in comparison to methods developed in the US. "Better living through science" isn't always better. Nature's got a hell of a lot more experience than human science.

Phil Edwards

You're welcome Michael. I hope you enjoy the filter and get many years of use out of it. Mine were in prime working order after five years of use, right up to the point where I had to sell them.